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THE 



SPIRIT-RAPPER; 



AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



BY 

o. a: browns on, 

AUTHOR OF "CHARLES EL WOOD." 



BOSTON: 

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 

LOND ON: 

CHARLES DOLMAN. 

M.DCCC.LIV. 



.ft* 6 




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 

Little, Brown and Company. 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 






RIVERSIDE, C A M 1J R I D G E : 
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



PREFACE, 



If the critics undertake to determine, by any re- 
cognized rules of art, to what class of literary pro- 
ductions the following unpretending work belongs, 
I think they will be sorely puzzled. I am sure I 
5 r n puzzled myself to say what it is. It is not a 
» v^el; it is not a romance; it is not a biography of 
• :eal individual ; it is not a dissertation, an essay, 

a regular treatise ; and yet it perhaps has some 
elements of them all, thrown together in just such 
a way as best suited my convenience, or my pur- 
pose. 

I wanted to write a book, easy to write and not 
precisely hard to read, on the new superstition, or 
old superstition under a new name, exciting just 
now no little attention at home and abroad ; and 
I chose such a literary form as I — not, properly 
speaking, a literary man — could best manage, and 
which would afford me the most facilities for bring- 
ing distinctly before the reader the various points 
a* 



VI PREFACE. 

to which I wished to direct his attention. If the 
critics think that I have chosen badly, they are at 
liberty to bestow upon the author as much of the 
castigation which, in his capacity of Reviewer, he 
has for many years been in the habit of bestowing 
upon others, as they think proper. I have thought 
it but fair to give those whom I may have offended 
by my own criticisms in another place, an opportu- 
nity to pay their debts and wipe off old scores. 

The book, though affecting some degree of levity, 
is serious in its aims, and truthful in its statements. 
There is no fiction in it, save its machinery. What 
is given as fact, is fact, or at least so regarded by 
the author. The facts narrated, or strictly analo- 
gous facts, I have either seen myself, or given on 
what I regard as ample evidence. The theory pre- 
sented as their explanation, and the reasoning by 
which it is sustained, speak for themselves, and are 
left to the judgment of the reader. 

The connection of spirit-rapping, or the spirit- 
manifestations, with modern philanthropy, visionary 
reforms, socialism, and revolutionism, is not an im- 
agination of my own. It is historical, and asserted 
by the Spiritists, or Spiritualists themselves, as any 
one may satisfy himself who can have the patience 
to look through their Library. I have endeavored 



PREFACE. Vll 

to be scrupulously exact in all my statements and 
representations in this respect. The shafts which 
the author shoots at random may perhaps hit some 
well-meaning persons who get crotchets in their 
heads, or astride of hobbies ; but they are not 
poisoned with malice, and will titillate the skin, 
rather than penetrate the flesh. 

I have not aimed at originality, or at displaying 
my erudition in the Black Art. I have certainly 
read some on the subject, and at one period of my 
life made myself acquainted with more "deviltry" 
than ever did or ever will do me any good. I have 
however drawn very little from " forbidden " sources. 
In writing, I have used freely a recent French work, 
from which I have taken the larger portion of my 
facts, and many of my arguments, although I 
had previously studied the subject for myself, had 
learned the same facts, with one or two exceptions, 
from other sources, and had adopted the same solu- 
tion. The work I refer to is entitled, Pneumatologie 
des Esprils et de leurs Manifestations fluidiques. By 

the Marquis Etudes de M . Paris, 1853. 

There are some views, not unimportant, in this 
work, wjnch I am not prepared to accept; but, 
upon the whole, it is the only really sensible and 
scientific work I have seen on the subject, and I 



Vlll PREFACE. 

freely confess that I have done little more than 
transfer its substance to my pages. 

The volume when it was begun was intended to 
be published anonymously, but my publishers have 
preferred to issue it with the name of the author. I 
think they have judged unwisely, but as they ought 
to know their own trade better than I, and as there 
is nothing in it that I am particularly ashamed of 
or unwilling to avow, I cheerfully comply with their 
request, and send it out with my name, to make or 
mar its fortune. If it tend in any degree to throw 
light on the dark facts of history, to check super- 
stition, to rebuke unreasoning scepticism, and to 
recall the age to faith in the Gospel of our Lord, 
the purpose, the serious purpose, for which it was 
written will be answered, and I shall be content, 
whatever reception it may otherwise meet from 
the public. 

THE AUTHOR. 
Boston, August 11, 1854. 



C O N TENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
The First Lesson 1 



CHAPTER II. 
Guesses 



10 



CHAPTER III- 
Further Experiments 22 

CHAPTER IV. 
An Explosion **«* 



CHAPTER V. 
Some Progress 46 



CHAPTER VI. 
Table Turning 61 

CHAPTER VII. 
A Lesson in Philanthropy 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
A Lesson in World-Reform .... 91 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Conspiracy 112 

CHAPTER X. 
Mr. Cotton is Puzzled 133 

CHAPTER XL 
Worth Considering 154 

CHAPTER XII. 
A Missionary Tour 173 

CHAPTER XIIL 
The Tour Continued 184 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Rome and the Revolution .... 199 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Ulterior Project 218 

CHAPTER XVI. 
A Rebuff 239 

CHAPTER XVII. 
A Gleam of Hope 245 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Religious Monomania ..... 257 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Mesmerism Insufficient ..... 275 

CHAPTER XX. 
Sheer Deviltry 290 

CHAPTER XXL 
Spirit-Manifestations 303 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Superstition ....... 316 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Difficulties . . . . . . . 329 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Left in the Lurch ...... 347 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Conclusions ....... 363 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Conversion ....... 387 



THE SPIRIT-RAPPEE. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE FIRST LESSON. 



My days are numbered ; I am drawing near to 
the close of my earthly pilgrimage, and I must soon 
take my final departure, — whither, I dread to think. 
But before I go I would leave a brief record of some 
incidents in my worse than unprofitable life. A few 
who have known me, and will have the charity to 
breathe a prayer at my grave, may be glad to pos- 
sess it ; and others of my countrymen, who know 
not what to think of the marvellous phenomena 
daily and hourly exhibited in their midst, or are 
vainly striving to explain them on natural principles, 
may find it neither uninteresting nor uninstructive. 

Of my exterior life I have not much to record, for 

though few have played a more active or important 

part in the great events of the past few years, my 

name has rarely been connected with them before 

1 



THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 



the public. I was born in a small town in Western 
New York. My parents were honest agriculturists 
from Connecticut, and descended from ancestors 
who, with Hooker, founded the colony of Hartford. 
They were among the early settlers of what used 
to be called the " Holland Purchase," and, till emi- 
grating to the new world west of the Genesee, were 
rigid Puritans. Like most emigrants from the land 
of "steady habits," they were intelligent, moral, in- 
dustrious, and economical, and, as a matter of course, 
soon prospered in this world's goods, and became 
able to give their only son the best education the 
State could furnish, and to leave him a competent 
estate. I made my preparatory studies at Batavia, 
and entered, at seventeen, the Freshman class of 
Union College, Schenectady. I remained at college 
four years, a diligent, if not a brilliant student, and 
graduated at the close with the highest standing, 
and the general love and esteem of my classmates. 

My early predilection was for the mathematical 
an£ physical sciences. The moral and intellectual 
sciences were not much to my taste. I took no 
great interest in them. They struck me as vague, 
uncertain, and unprofitable. I preferred what M. 
Comte has since called Positive Philosophy. I soon 
mastered mathematics, mechanics, and physics, as 
far as they were taught in our college, but I found 
my greatest delight in chemistry, which, by its subtle 
analyses, seemed to promise me an approach to the 
vital principle and to the essences of things. 



THE FIRST LESSON. 



On leaving college I studied — not very pro- 
foundly — medicine, and took my degree, less with 
a view to professional practice, in which I never 
engaged, than with a view to general science. After 
taking my degree as Doctor of Medicine, I resumed 
and extended my college studies, entered largely into 
the study of natural history, physical geography, 
zoology, geology, mineralogy, and indeed all the 'olo- 
gies, then so fashionable that one must have a smat- 
tering of them if he would woo successfully his 
sweetheart. I paid some attention to Gall and Spurz- 
heim's new science of Phrenology, when Spurzheim 
visited this country, where he died, and was much 
interested in it till I had the misfortune to listen to 
a course of lectures in its exposition and defence, by 
George Combe, Esq., the great Scottish phrenolo- 
gist. That course upset me, and I have since aban- 
doned Phrenology, save so far as I find it taught by 
Plato in his Timaeus, and only laughed at its pre- 
tensions and its adherents. 

I was arrested, for a moment, by Boston Trans- 
cendentalism, but I could not make much of it. - Its 
chiefs told me that I was not spiritual enough to 
appreciate it, and that I was too much under the 
despotism of the understanding to be able to rise 
to those empyrean regions where the soul asserts 
her freedom, and sports with infinite delight in all 
the luxury of the unintelligible. I thought they 
talked metaphysics, what neither their hearers nor 
themselves could understand ; and finding myself 



4 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

very little enlightened by their intelligible unintel- 
ligibility, their dark utterances, and their Orphic 
sayings, I gave them up, and returned to my labora- 
tory. 

About 1836, I made the acquaintance of Dr. 

P , or, as he claimed to be, the Marquis de 

P , a native of one of the French West India 

Islands, but brought up and educated at Paris, 
where he had been a Saint-Simonian, and a chief 
of the savans of the new religion. The decision of 
the French courts in 1833, that Saint-Simonistn 
was not a religion, and therefore that its chiefs were 
not priests, and entitled to a salary from the state, 
dispersed the new sect, and he soon after came to 
the United States, and commenced, though with a 
very imperfect knowledge of our language, and very 
little facility in speaking it, a course of lectures in 
several of our eastern cities, on Mesmerism, or, as 
he preferred to call it, Animal Magnetism. His 
appearance was by no means prepossessing, and his 
manners, though unpretending, were very far from 
indicating that exquisite grace and polish which are 
supposed, for what reason I know not, to be pecu- 
liar to the Frenchman ; but he was a serious, earnest- 
minded man, who in several branches of science 
had made solid studies. I knew him well, and 
esteemed him much. 

At that time I had paid not much attention to 
Mesmerism. I had heard of Mesmer indeed, of his 
extraordinary pretensions, and the wonderful phe- 



THE FIRST LESSON. 



nomena which he professed to produce by his rod 
and tub ; but I had supposed that the matter had 
been put at rest for all sensible persons by the 
famous report of the French Academy in 1784, 
signed, among others, by Bailly the astronomer, and 
our own Franklin. I supposed that every scientific 
man acquiesced in the conclusion of that report, that 
the extraordinary phenomena exhibited by magnet- 
ism were to be ascribed to the imagination, and that 
from the date of that report magnetism had ceased 
to occupy the attention of the scientific. I was 
therefore surprised, nay, scandalized, to find a man 
of real science,, and, as I wished to believe, of real 
worth, professing faith in what I had been led to 
regard as an exploded humbug, and which, at the 
very best, could have no practical utility beyond 
illustrating the deceptive power of the imagination, 
and the sad consequences which might result to 
those weak-minded people who become dupes to 
their own disordered fancy. 

Dr. P— — assured me that I was mistaken both 
as to the bearing and as to the effect of the famous 
report of the French Academy. That report, he said, 
concedes the reality of the mesmeric phenomena, and 
only declares that the assertion of Mesmer, that they 
are produced by means of a subtle fluid analogous to 
electricity or magnetism, was not proven or demon- 
strated by the experiments the commission wit- 
nessed ; which gives no uneasiness to any animal 
magnetist in our day, because now no one pretends 



THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 



to explain those phenomena by means of such a 
fluid. It is true, he said, the commission, in their 
published report, assert that the phenomena are to 
be explained by the imagination; but in a private 
report, addressed to the king, they say, that " it is 
impossible not to recognize in them a great power 
which agitates and subjects the patients, and of 
which the magnetizer appears to be the depositary." 
This, contended Dr. P , is by no means com- 
patible with the theory which ascribes them to the 
imagination, for that theory supposes the cause that 
produces them to be in the magnetized, since it is 
to their imagination, not to that of the magnetizer, 
that they are to be ascribed ; but in this secret report, 
the power which produces them is assumed to be in 
the magnetizer, " of which," it says, " he who mag- 
netizes seems to be the depositary." For these, as 
well as other reasons, he said, the report of the 
Academy was not regarded by magnetists as any 
authority against Animal Magnetism as understood 
and practised at the present time. 

Moreover, he assured me, that the report of the 
Academy had not settled the question, or seriously 
checked the cultivation or the progress of Animal 
Magnetism. It had at no moment ceased to be 
studied and practised, chiefly for its therapeutic 
effects, and, as he proved to me, was at the time 
firmly held and practised by large numbers of the 
most upright, benevolent, learned, and scientific 
members of the medical profession in France, Ger- 



THE FIRST LESSON. i 

many, and Great Britain. It had continued to make 
progress, and was now very generally held and re- 
spected on the continent of Europe. If I would 
not be behind my age, if I would not remain igno- 
rant of a very curious and interesting class of phe- 
nomena, I must, he insisted, investigate and make 
myself acquainted with Animal Magnetism. I 
should do it as a lover of science ; I should do it 
more especially as a lover of my race, as a friend of 
humanity ; for I might rest assured that Animal 
Magnetism is the most facile and powerful means 
ever yet discovered of solacing, and to a great ex- 
tent curing, a thousand ills that flesh is heir to. 

My curiosity, I confess, was excited, and I resolved 

to investigate the subject. Dr. P had picked up, 

somewhere in Rhode Island, a somnambulist, an hon- 
est, simple-minded young woman, of no great strength 
of intellect, and very little education or knowledge. 
She was sickly, and suffering from some nervous 
affection. He had found her very susceptible to the 
mesmeric influence, and he made her the subject of 
numerous experiments. He had brought her, in the 
winter of 1836-7, to Boston, and there exhibited 
her to his class. Spending that winter in the same 
city, I consented one afternoon to be present at his 
experiments. There were some twenty or thirty 
gentlemen present on the occasion, mostly lawyers, 
physicians, ministers, and literary and scientific gen- 
tlemen of distinction, all disbelievers in Mesmerism, 



8 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

and on the alert to detect the least sign of deception 
or complicity. 

The Doctor introduced his patient, who took 
her seat in an arm-chair placed in the centre of the 

room, and, without any visible sign from Dr. P , 

was in a few minutes apparently fast asleep. Her 
breathing was regular, her pulse natural, and her 
sleep sound and tranquil. Was it sleep ? It was, 
as far as we could ascertain, and sleep accompanied 
by complete insensibility. We resorted to every 
imaginable contrivance to awaken her. One tickled 
her nose with a feather, another shook her with all 
his might, another discharged a pistol close to her 
ear, another stuck pins and needles into her flesh, — 
all without the least effect. There was no quiver- 
ing or shrinking, no muscular contraction, and to 
the rudest proofs she was as insensible as a corpse. 
We all exhausted our inventive powers in vain, and 
stood astounded, unwilling to trust our own senses, 
and yet unable to detect the least conceivable decep- 
tion or collusion. We none of us knew what to 
think or say. We were taken all aback. 

Various written questions, after we had given over 

trying to awaken her, were handed to Dr. P , 

which he put to her mentally, without a word or 
sign that we could any of us discern, and to which 
she instantly answered. One question was, the 
time of the day ; she answered, and answered cor- 
rectly, much more so than most gentlemen's w T atches 
present. To every question put she answered, and 



THE FIRST LESSON. 9 

so far as any of us knew, or could ascertain, with 
perfect accuracy. The Doctor at length told her he 
thought she had slept long enough, and would do 
well to wake up. Instantly she was wide awake, 
and apparently unconscious of all that had passed. 

She remained awake for some time, when Dr. P 

said to her, " I will you to go to sleep again for just 
fifteen minutes, and then to wake up." Instantly 
she dropped asleep. One or two of the company 
took the Doctor into a different part of the room, 
got him into an angry discussion, and made him 
forget the order he had given. I stood by the som- 
nambulist holding my watch in my hand, and to my 
astonishment, precisely at the expiration of fifteen 
minutes, she awoke. Various other experiments 
w ? ere tried, various severe tests were put ; — some of 
them with complete success, others, indeed, proved 
total failures ; and after a session of about three hours 
the party broke up and went to their several homes, 
some two or three converted, the greater part satisfied 
that there was and could be no collusion or deception, 
and yet wholly sceptical as to the alleged magnetic 
power. 



10 



CHAPTER II. 



GUESSES. 



It is no easy matter to give full credit to the 
reality of the mesmeric phenomena, or to admit the 
alleged facts, and when forced to do so by a mass of 
testimony which it is impossible to resist, nothing is 
more natural than that we should suggest various 
hypotheses to account for them. Of all these hypo- 
theses no one, to those who have been eye-witnesses 
of the mesmeric phenomena, is less satisfactory than 
that which attributes th^m to a species of juggling 
or sleight-of-hand, or to collusion between the mag- 
netized and the magnetizer. Whatever may be the 
jugglery or connivance in particular cases, or what- 
ever be the real solution of the problem, we must, as 
a general rule, admit the good faith of the parties. 
The man who could produce by address or skill, by 
art, the wonderful phenomena produced by the mes- 
merizer, who could so successfully elude the scrutiny 
of the most acute and intelligent witnesses, and so 
effectually deceive the senses of all classes, would 
have no motive to practise mesmerism, for he could 
produce more excitement, and gain more notoriety, 
and more money as a professed juggler. It is very 
easy for those who have never seen the mesmeric phe- 



GUESSES. 11 

nomena, to set them down as a mere cheat, which 
they, if present, could very easily have detected, but 
it is very possible that they who have witnessed them 
are as able to detect an imposition as would be 
these critics themselves, and are far better judges 
than they are, not having seen them, unless we are 
to suppose that the blind can in some cases see bet- 
ter than those who have eyes. Among the innu- 
merable witnesses of these phenomena there may 
be as careful and as intelligent observers as those 
who emit their oracles with solemn gravity on 
matters of which they confessedly know nothing. 
Academicians and members of royal and scientific 
societies are no doubt very respectable personages, 
but they are not always the best observers in the 
world. I would trust "Jack" to distinguish be- 
tween a seal or horse-mackerel and the sea-serpent, 
much quicker than I would Professor Owen or Pro- 
fessor Agassiz. Learned academicians and mem- 
bers of scientific societies, whether of Paris or Lon- 
don, Berlin or Philadelphia, are the easiest people in 
the world to impose upon. A clever lad could pass 
off upon them a sucker for a pike, and a crawfish 
for a lobster. But they need not judge all the world 
by themselves. Human testimony is not yet be- 
come wholly worthless. There is a cloud both of 
competent and of credible witnesses in almost every 
country, to the reality of the mesmeric phenomena, 
and to the good faith, the simplicity, and trust- 
worthiness of both mesmerizers and mesmerized. 



12 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Whatever be the agent that actually produces these 
extraordinary phenomena, we must seek it elsewhere 
than in mere jugglery, sleight-of-hand, trickery, or 
fraud. 

I do not give the results of my first experiments 
as any thing very wonderful. They would excite 
little attention now. Mesmerism is much more ad- 
vanced than it was in the hands of my French friend. 
It is true, there were rumors even then of far more 
marvellous phenomena, strange stories of clairvoy- 
ance or second-sight were whispered, and strange 
revelations of an invisible world, not recognized by 
received science, were hinted ; but my friend would 
not heed them. He was a rationalist, and would 
not hear of any thing not explicable on natural prin- 
ciples. But what I witnessed convinced me of the 
reality of the magnetic sleep, and of the subjection 
of the somnambulist to the will of the mesmerizer, 
or that one person can, under certain circumstances, 
exercise an absolute control over the organs of 
another, and render the somnambulist, during the 
magnetic sleep, absolutely insensible to all save the 
mesmerizer. Here was certainly a marvellous power ; 
what was it ? Was it, as Bailly and Franklin's Re- 
port of 1784 asserted, the imagination ? Singular 
effect of imagination that would put a person asleep 
at another's will, render her completely insensible — 
dead to all the world but the mesmerizer ; make 
her go to sleep and wake up at the time specified, 
answer questions only mentally put, and with a 



GUESSES. 13 

promptness and an accuracy wholly impossible in her 
normal state! A very inexplicable imagination that, 
and itself not less puzzling than the mesmeric phe- 
nomena themselves. 

" No, it is not imagination," insisted Dr. P , 

" any more than it is a magnetic fluid, as asserted by 
Mesmer. It is the will of the magnetizer operating 
immediately on the will of the somnambulist, and 
through that on her organs. Or rather, it is the 
spiritual being in me operating immediately on the 
spiritual being in her, and therefore these pheno- 
mena afford an excellent refutation of materialism, 
and reveal a great and glorious law of human 
nature, recognized, though misconceived, in all ages 
and nations ; a mighty law, but hitherto denied to 
human nature, and supposed to be something lying 
out of our sphere, superhuman, and even super- 
natural. Modern science began by denying the 
mysterious facts recorded in history, but it is be- 
ginning to accept them, and to show that they are 
all explicable on the principles of human nature." 

"What strikes me as most remarkable in the 
mesmeric phenomena," said Mr. Winslow, a rather 
grave minister of the extreme left of the Unitarian 
denomination, who had joined Dr. P and my- 
self on our way to my lodgings, " what strikes me 
as most remarkable in the mesmeric phenomena is, 
not the kind of power they reveal, but the degree. 
Every man who has been accustomed to public 
2 



14 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

speaking, if he has observed, is conscious of a kin- 
dred power." 

" To put his audience asleep," interposed Jack 
Wheatley, a young lawyer, who was usually one of 
my companions while in the city, " but not always 
to make them submissive to his will." 

" It is a mysterious power," continued Mr. "Wins- 
low, " which the orator seems to have over his audi- 
ence, a power of which he is conscious, but which 
is wholly unintelligible to himself." 

" But very intelligible to his hearers," interposed 
Jack. 

" You are impertinent, sir," replied the minister, 
with offended dignity. Sometimes when I have 
attempted to preach, I have found myself, though 
perfectly familiar with my subject, hardly able to 
cay a word. My ideas dance around and before 
my mind like summer insects, but at such a dis- 
tance, and with such rapidity, that I strive in vain 
to seize them. If I do succeed in saying some- 
thing, my words penetrate not my hearers ; they as 
it were rebound, and affect only myself." 

" Indeed!" interjected the incorrigible Jack. 

" Other times," continued Mr. Winslow, not heed- 
ing Jack's exclamation, " my ideas seem to come of 
themselves, to flow without effort, and to clothe 
themselves, without any thought or intervention of 
mine, in the most fitting words. I find myself ele- 
vated above myself ; I am in intimate relation with 



GUESSES. 15 

the minds of my hearers. It seems that an electric 
current passes from them to me and from me to 
them, making us as it were one man. I speak 
with their combined force added to my own, and 
each of them hears and takes in my words with the 
united understanding of all." 

" There may be something in that," said Jack. 
" You know, Doctor," turning to me, " that I have no 
more religion than a horse, and am seldom serious 
for five consecutive minutes in my life. Well, being 
in the country the other evening, on a visit to a 
crotchety old aunt, whose very cat would not dare 
to purr or to wash her face on Sunday, and finding it 
exceedingly dull, I took it into my head to seek a 
little amusement or diversion by attending a Metho- 
dist prayer-meeting, or conference, held in a school- 
house close by. I seldom go to meeting, but once- 
and-awhile I like to attend a Methodist evening 
gathering. I sometimes find plenty of fun. The 
performances this evening had begun before my 
arrival, for, as usual, I was rather late. On enter- 
ing I found the house crowded almost to suffoca- 
tion. Ten or a. dozen men, women, boys, and girls, 
were down on their knees, all screaming at once 
from the very top of their lungs, and the rest of the 
brethren and sisters were groaning, shouting, clap- 
ping their hands, in glorious confusion. I worked 
my w r ay along to a vacant spot which I spied just 
before a blazing fire. Turning my back to the fire, 
and holding aside the skirts of my coat so that they 



16 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

should not get scorched, I stood and looked for some 
minutes on the scene before me. At first I was 
struck with its comical character, and was much 
amused ; soon, however, I grew serious, became sad, 
and then indignant, that beings in human shape, 
and endowed, I presumed, with the faculty of rea- 
son, should make such fools of themselves. I in- 
wardly resolved that for once I would " speak in 
meeting," and that as soon as there should be a 
pause or a lull, so that I could stand some chance of 
making myself heard, I would give them a piece 
of Jack Wheatley's mind. In a word, I resolved to 
give them a downright scolding, and to tell them 
plainly what fools they were to suppose that they 
could please God by acting like so many bedlam- 
ites or howling dervishes. 

" "Well, after some fifteen or twenty minutes, there 
came a slacking up, and I opened my mouth. I re- 
membered what my old rhetoric master had taught 
me, though how I came to is a puzzle, and resolved 
to begin in a modest and conciliatory manner. It 
would not do to shock them in the outset. I must 
first gain their ears and their good- will. So I began 
with a grave face and a solemn tone, and made 
some commonplace remarks on religion, and the 
duty to love and worship God, meaning, (after my 
preliminary remarks, intended to gain the jury,) to 
bring in, with crushing effect, my rebukes. But the 
brethren did not wait. Mistaking me for a pious 
exhorter, they cried out almost at my first words, 



GUESSES. 17 

"Amen!" "Glory!" "Bless the Lord!" "Go on, 
brother ! " Will you believe it ? Instantly I caught 
the enthusiasm, became possessed by the genius loci, 
entered in spite of myself into the spirit of the meet- 
ing, and gave a most magnificent methodistical ex- 
hortation. The brethren and sisters were edified, 
were enraptured, and when the time came for the 
meeting to break up, the leader requested me to 
close the performances with prayer, which I did 
with great fervor and unction. The spell lasted till 
I got out of the house into the open air." 

" So Saul was among the prophets," remarked 
Mr. Winslow, as Jack concluded. " I am not sur- 
prised, for something similar occurred to myself 
when I first began to preach. There is, I believe, 
something infectious in these Methodist gatherings, 
and a wise man often finds himself acting in them 
as a 'fool acteth." 

" Few wise men, I should think, ever go near 
them," I remarked. 

" I know not how that may be," replied Mr. Wins- 
low, " but there are few men that are always wise, 
or who never find themselves doing a foolish action. 
Even the greatest and wisest of our race sometimes 
unbend, and prove that there are points in which 
they are united to ordinary humanity. There is in 
this secret and invisible influence, to which I refer, of 
one man over another that has long arrested my at- 
tention. Often have I known both speaker and hear- 
ers electrified by a few commonplace words, carried 

2* 



18 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

away, it would seem, by a force not their own ; now 
melted into tears ; now inflamed with a pure and un- 
earthly love ; now maddened with rage ; now fired 
with a lofty enthusiasm, swelling with heroic emo- 
tions, and panting to do heroic deeds. In these mo- 
ments man is more than man ; a higher than man 
possesses him, and he becomes thaumaturgic, works 
miracles, removes mountains, stops the course of 
rivers, heals the sick, casts out devils, moves, speaks, 
and acts a god. I call it the demonic element of hu- 
man nature, and I think, if these mesmeric*pheno- 
mena turn out to be real, they will be found to have 
their explanation in this mysterious and even fearful 
element, which the older theologians called faith, and 
superstition looks upon as supernatural." 

" That there is some analogy between Animal 
Magnetism and the class of facts to which you refer, 
or which you have in your mind," observed' Dr. 

P , " I do not deny. But, after all, what is the 

power which produces them ? To resolve one class 
of facts into another, equally if not more mysterious, 
is not to explain them." 

" But what more, my dear Doctor," I asked, " do 
you yourself do ? There are here two distinct ques- 

Itions : Is there really such a class of extraordinary 
phenomena as you mesmerizers assert ? and if so, 
what is the agent or efficient cause in producing 
them ? As to the first, I am so far satisfied as to 
concede that the remarkable phenomena asserted 
may be real ; but I have not seen enough to war- 



GUESSES. 19 

rant any sound induction as to their cause or gene- 
ral law. I must continue my observation of facts 
much longer, and extend it much further, before I 
proceed to any induction in the case. You say they 
are produced by the will of one acting immediately 
on the will of another, and through that on the 
organs of the person magnetized, by virtue, as you 
allege, of a law of human nature. Yet you do not 
tell us what this law is, or what is the nature of that 
which my reverend friend calls the demonic power 
of man. 

" In no case does it belong to man to answer simi- 
lar questions," replied Dr. P . " We in no case 

know the essences of things. All that men are able 
to do is to observe phenomena, and from them to 
infer or affirm that there is and must be an agent or 
power which produces them. Can you tell me what 
is gravitation ? All you can tell me is, that bodies 
fall or tend to the centre of the earth, and what are the 
laws and conditions of that tendency. What is elec- 
tricity? You cannot tell me. You can only tell me 
that there is a certain class of phenomena, which 
you can trace to a certain invisible and impondera- 
ble agent, and to that invisible and unknown agent, 
that " occult power," as an earlier philosophy would 
have called it, you give the name of electricity. 
All you can know of it is, its existence, the laws 
by which it operates, the means by which you can 
avail yourself of it, get power over it, avert it from 
your house or barn when it breaks forth in the thun- 



20 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

der-gust, or use it to drive your machinery, to con- 
vey your messages, or to solace your pain. Science 
calls it a fluid, but what it is in itself science knows 
not, for it has seen it only in its operations or effects. 
So w T ith this power, or law of human nature, to 
which I ascribe the magnetic phenomena. All I 
pretend to tell is, that the law is a reality, and all I 
pretend to demonstrate is, that w T e may avail our- 
selves of it, and use it for the most useful and noble 
purposes. This is enough. All w r e need to know 
is its existence, or the purposes to which it may be 
applied, and how we can apply it or render it ser- 
viceable. Let man know that he has it, and then 
let him learn how to use it." 

" But after all, I am a little frightened at the sup- 
position of this power," remarked Mr. Winslow. 
There is something fearful in this complete subjec- 
tion of one, soul and body, to the will of another. 
The somnambulist is, during the mesmeric trance, 
the slave of the mesmerizer, as much so as was the 
genie to the possessor of the wonderful lamp, and 
he may do with him or her what he pleases. Is 
there not danger here ? May he not use his power 
in a base way, to gratify his passions, his lusts, his 
hatred, or his revenge, and with complete impunity, 
since the somnambulist retains no consciousness or 
recollection on returning to the normal state, of what 
passed during the magnetic slumber? Let Animal 
Magnetism become generally known and practised, 
and who could know when or where he was safe ? 



GUESSES. 21 

Any one of us might at any moment fall a victim, 
or be made the blind instrument of the basest and 
most malignant passions of others." 

" Those are idle fears," replied Dr. P ; " none 

but virtuous men can exercise the power, or if 
others can, they can exercise it only for honest and 
benevolent purposes." 

" That, if true, would be reassuring," I observed ; 
" but, for myself, I revolt at the bare idea of being 
so completely in the power of another, however 
honest or well-disposed he may be. I choose to be 
my own, and not another's." 



22 



CHAPTER III. 



FURTHER EXPERIMENTS. 



Dr. P continued his lectures, private instruc- 
tions, and experiments for some months, and very- 
soon they began to produce their natural effect. No 
people are more disposed to run after every novelty, 
or are naturally more fond of the marvellous than 
the Anglo-Americans. They live in a constant state 
of excitement, and are always craving some new 
stimulant. They have been transplanted from the 
old homestead, are without ancestors, traditions, old 
associations, or fixed habits transmitted from gene- 
ration to generation through a long series of ages. 
They have descended, in great part, from the sects 
that separated in the seventeenth century from the 
Anglican Church, which had in the sixteenth century 
itself separated from the Church of Rome, and to a 
great extent broken with antiquity. They are a new 
people, — in many respects a child-people, with the 
simplicity, freshness, impressibility, unsteadiness, cu- 
riosity, caprice, and waywardness of children. They 
must have their playthings, and they no sooner 
obtain a new toy than they tire of it, throw it away, 
and seek another. Yet are they richly endowed, and 
they possess in the highest degree many of the nobler 



FURTHER EXPERIMENTS. 23 

virtues of our nature. They are a poetical and ima- 
ginative, as well as a reasoning and practical peo- 
ple. They have a robust and not unkindly nature, 
— are susceptible of deep emotions, and capable of 
heroic deeds. They treat few subjects with absolute 
indifference, and seldom fail to give any one who 
has, or professes to have, something to say, a tolera- 
bly fair and patient hearing. Whoever is able to 
touch their fancy, stir their feelings, excite their curi- 
osity, or their marvellousness, is pretty sure of having 
them run after him = — for a time. 

Animal Magnetism soon became the fashion, in 
the principal towns and villages of the Eastern and 
Middle States. Old men and women, young men 
and maidens, boys and girls, of all classes and sizes, 
were engaged in studying the mesmeric phenomena, 
and mesmerizing or being mesmerized, — some de- 
claring themselves believers, some expressing mo- 
destly their doubts, the majority, while half believ- 
ing, loudly declaring themselves inveterate sceptics. 
Jack Wheatley very soon became a famous mesmer- 
izer — for sport. He laughed at the whole concern, 
and yet he was the most successful of the mesmer- 
izers, and his subjects always behaved with great 
propriety, seldom, if ever, failing him, or disappoint- 
ing the wondering spectators. Mr. Winslow, after 
hesitating a while, began to try experiments himself, 
and found that he had a wonderful magnetic power, 
especially over the young misses and spinsters of his 
congregation. He found by actual experiment, often 



24 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

repeated, and fully attested, that he could mesmerize 
without being in the same room with his subject, 
without any previous communication of his intent, 
and even persons with whom he had no acquaint- 
ance, and had never spoken. More than once he 
had thrown a young lady in an adjoining room into 
the magnetic slumber. Of this there could be no 
doubt. He knew well his own intention, and hun- 
dreds of witnesses were ready to depose to the fact 
of the slumber. At first he tried this experiment 
only upon those who had been previously mesmer- 
ized, but he afterwards tried it with brilliant success 
on others. 

But the marvel did not stop here. Mr. Winslow 
soon found that he could magnetize material ob- 
jects, which in turn would magnetize persons. He 
wished to mesmerize a young lady, without commu- 
nicating to her his wish. He mesmerized a glass of 
water, which was handed her by a person ignorant 
of what he had done, and of his intention. She 
drank of it, and in a very few minutes sank into a 
profound magnetic slumber, and exhibited the phe- 
nomena usually exhibited in artificial somnambu- 
lism. When I first heard of this experiment I 
laughed at it, for it seemed to me a wholly inad- 
missible fact. I could conceive it possible for mind 
to act on mind ; for the will of the magnetizer to 
affect the will of the magnetized ; but it was repug- 
nant to all received science to suppose that mind or 
spirit can, without some natural medium, operate on 



FURTHER EXPERIMENTS. 25 

material objects. But from what I subsequently saw 
and did myself, and what I was assured of by others, 
both competent and credible, I became convinced 
that I must admit it, or reject all human testimony. 

Mr. Winslow, once become a mesmerizer, very 

soon left Dr. P far behind. In pushing forward 

his investigations, he found that he could not only 
throw persons, not indeed every one, but one in 
twenty-five or thirty, into the mesmeric sleep, render 
them insensible, dead as it were to all the world ex- 
cept himself, but that he could develop in them, 
or superinduce upon them, a marvellous physical 
strength. I saw him place a weak and sickly boy 
in a chair on the platform of his lecture room, and 
so nerve his arm that not two of the strongest men 
could move it. He would, by his mental operation, 
so nail the chair to the floor that no force applied to 
it could raise it. He would throw the boy by the 
same operation upon the floor, render his whole 
body, neck, legs, arms, fingers, and toes, rigid, and 
stiff as a crowbar ; then suddenly relax all his limbs, 
and render him as flexible as a reed — now fill him 
with rage, make him rave furiously, rush through the 
audience as one possessed, overthrowing every thing 
and every one in his way — now recall him, soothe 
his rage, make him cry and weep as if afflicted with 
the deepest and most inconsolable grief, and now 
dry at once his tears, and break forth into the wildest 
and maddest joy. 

These were singular phenomena. Whence this 
3 



26 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

apparently superhuman strength ? That certainly 
was no effect of complicity, for the boy exhibited a 
physical strength far surpassing that of both mes- 
merizer and mesmerized in their normal state. It 
could not be the effect of imagination. " For how," 
said Mr. Winslow, " can you explain by imagina- 
tion the effect produced on material objects ? You 
see that I can magnetize a glass of water or a bunch 
of flowers. Do you pretend that these are endowed 
with imagination ; are not only sensitive, but also 
intellectual, and even volitive ? ' Have the most 
common material objects sense, intellect, and will ? 
Imagination, highly excited, may indeed develop 
and concentrate the strength which one has, but 
how impart a strength which one has not?" 

" I have been studying these wonderful phenome- 
na," said Mr. Increase Mather Cotton, a rigid puri- 
tan minister of high standing, and who had accom- 
panied me to see Mr. Winslow's experiments, "and 
I think I see in them the works of the devil." 

" Why, sir," replied Mr. Winslow, " I do these 
things myself. My patients move and act, are para- 
lyzed, laugh, cry, weep, rage, foam, run, fly, fight, or 
make love, at my will. Do you think I am the 
devil?" 

" Be not too confident," replied Mr. Cotton. "You 
may yet find that, if not the devil yourself, that it 
is a devil, and a very base and wicked devil, that 
moves you, and uses you as the instrument of his 
malice." 



FURTHER EXPERIMENTS. 27 

" I have no belief," answered Mr. Winslow, " in 
devils or demons, as separate and intelligent beings." 

" I know very well, sir, that you are a Sadducee, 
and believe in neither angel nor spirit, although you 
would fain pass for a Christian minister," replied, 
with a severe tone, the stanch puritan, whose great 
ancestor had taken so conspicuous a part in Salem 
witchcraft. 

" You do me w r rong, Mr. Cotton," replied Mr. 
Winslow. " I am a Christian, and no Sadducee. 
I believe in the Christian religion as firmly as you 
do. I do not deny angel or spirit. By angel I un- 
derstand what the word itself imports, a messenger, 
and by spirit, a power, force, or energy. But I do 
not suppose that I am to understand by either an 
order of beings distinct and separate from man. I 
concede the spiritual power or energy, but it is the 
power or energy of the human being ; I grant the 
demonic character of these phenomena, but the force 
that produces them is the demonic force of human, 
nature itself. There are no personal angels, and no 
personal devils or demons." 

"And no personal God, you will say next, I pre- 
sume," replied Mr. Cotton with a sneer. 

" God is personal in me, in the human person- 
ality," proudly answered Mr. Winslow. " Personal- 
ity is a circumscription, a limitation ; and God, since, 
he is infinite, incapable of circumscription, cannot 
be personal in himself. He can be personal only in 



28 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

creatures, and consequently, only in such creatures 
as have personality, that is, men." 

" Your notion of personality is of a piece with 
your whole miscalled theology," replied Mr. Cotton. 
" Personality is the last complement of rational na- 
ture. If the nature is rational, that is, capable of 
intelligent and voluntary activity, and complete, it 
is a person, and if infinite, an infinite person. Your 
argument is a mere sophism, founded on a false de- 
finition of personality. A little philosophy or com- 
mon sense would be of great service to such Christ- 
ian ministers as you are." 

" Let us not," I interposed, " get involved in a 
theological discussion. We are to investigate this 
subject as men of science, not as theologians. We 
have here a scientific subject, and science leaves the- 
ologians to their speculations, without presuming to 
intervene in their interminable, useless, and weari- 
some disputes. If your theology is true, it can 
never be in conflict with science." 

" If your science be true, or really be science," re- 
torted Mr. Cotton, " it can never be in conflict with 
theology. I do not attempt to deduce my science 
from my theology, but I make my theology the mis- 
tress of my science. Whatever is inconsistent with 
it, I know beforehand cannot be genuine science, or 
true philosophy." 

" That may or may not be so," I replied ; " but 
I am no theologian. I am an humble cultivator 
of science, and I consider myself free to push 



FURTHER EXPERIMENTS. 29 

my scientific investigations into all subjects inde- 
pendently, without restraint, without leave asked or 
obtained either from you or my friend Mr. "Wins- 
low. All history has its superstitious and marvel- 
lous side. Science has heretofore denied the reality 
of that side of history, and regarded the marvel- 
lous facts with which ancient and mediaeval his- 
tory is filled, as never having really taken place, or 
as the result of fraud, trickery, or imposture, exagge- 
rated by the credulity, the ignorance, the wonder, 
and the disordered imaginations of the multitude. 
These mesmeric phenomena may throw a new light 
on that class of facts ; they may even relieve history 
from the charges which have been brought against 
it, and rehabilitate the ages that we have condemned, 
so far at least as the facts themselves are concerned, 
though not necessarily as to the theories by which 
they were in past times generally explained. I am 
myself at present bewildered. I am not willing to 
admit the facts, but I am unable to deny them. If 
they must be accepted, I incline to the view of my 
friend Mr. Winslow, and am disposed to assume 
that there is in human nature a law not hitherto 
well understood, a mysterious power, what he here 
calls the demonic power of human nature, the 
limits and extent of which science has not as yet 
explored." 

" There is something mysterious in man," remark- 
ed Mr. Sandborn, a Universalist minister present. 
" I remember, some years ago, that one summer 1 
3* 



30 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

was very much out of health. I suffered much from 
a bowel complaint, which brought me very low. 
But my mind was exceedingly active, and I seemed 
to myself to have not only more than my ordinary 
intellectual power, but also at my command a mass 
of information on a great variety of subjects which 
I was sure I had never acquired in the course of my 
ordinary studies. I seemed familiar with several 
physical sciences which I had never studied, and 
with facts, real facts too, which I had never learned. 
While I was in this state, I was visited at my resi- 
dence, in the village of Ithaca, New York, by a 
young friend, a brother minister, residing some 
eighteen or twenty miles distant. He saw my 
state, and urged me to go out and spend a few 
weeks with him at his boarding-house. The pure 
breezes, he said, from the hills would do me good, 
revive my languishing body, and restore me to health. 
I accepted my young friend's invitation, and the 
next morning we took the stage, and after some 
three hours' drive were set down at his lodgings. 
We were hardly seated in his library, when a ser- 
vant brought him a letter which had been taken 
from the post-office during his absence. I saw a 
slight blush on his face as he took the letter, and in- 
stantly comprehended that it was from his ' ladye 
love,' although I was entirely ignorant that he was 
paying his attentions to any one, or that he had any 
matrimonial intentions. Asking my permission, he 
broke the seal, and read his letter in my presence. 
When he had done, I said to him, 



FURTHER EXPERIMENTS. 31 

" ' You have there a letter from your sweetheart, 
the young lady to whom you are engaged to be 
married.' 

" ' How do you know that ? ' he asked in reply. 

" ' O that is evident,' I replied. < I see it in your 
face. Let me see the letter, and I will tell you her 
character.' 

" ' I would rather not,' he answered. 

" ' I do not wish to read it,' said I, ' I only wish to 
look at the handwriting.' 

" c But can you tell a person's character by seeing 
his handwriting.' 

" ' Certainly, nothing is easier,' I replied, although 
I had never tried, or even heard of such a thing be- 
fore. 

" He then handed me the letter. I fixed my eye 
on the writing for a moment without reading a word 
of the letter, and I saw, or seemed to see, standing 
before me, at some six or eight feet distant, a very 
good-looking young lady, a little below the medium 
size, with an agreeable expression of face, apparently 
about eighteen years of age, as plainly as I see any 
one of you now in this room. I proceeded quietly and 
at my ease to describe her to my friend. I told her 
age, described her size, her height, her complexion, 
the color and texture of her hair, the colors and qua- 
lity of her dress, indeed her whole external appear- 
ance, even to a hardly perceptible mole on her right 
cheek. My friend, you may well suppose, listened 
to me with surprise, astonishment, and wonder, and 



32 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

several times interrupted me with the question 'Are 
you really the devil ? ' He agreed that my description 
was accurate, and far more so than he could himself 
have given. 

" I then proceeded, to my friend's equal astonish- 
ment, to describe her moral and intellectual quali- 
ties, her disposition, her education, her tastes, her 
habits, &c, all of which he declared were correctly 
described, as far as he himself knew. I had never 
previously seen or heard of the young lady, who 
lived in another State, and was actually at the mo- 
ment some hundred and fifty miles distant. But 
this was not all. My friend married the young lady 
in the course of two or three months, and two years 
afterwards I called at his house, and was introduced 
to a lady whom I instantly recognized as the one 
whose image I had previously seen before me.* 
There is something in all this, and analogous facts 
related and well attested by others, that I cannot 
explain.'' 

We all agreed that the case was remarkable, and 
apparently inexplicable, on any known principles of 
received science. 

* A literal fact, in the experience of the author. 



33 



CHAPTER IV. 



AN EXPLOSION. 



Dr. P having accomplished his object in visit- 
ing this country, and being invited home by his fa- 
mily, took his leave of us in the summer of 1840, 
and returned to the West Indies. I have not seen 
him since. But he left behind a large number of 
disciples, and we had no lack of mesmerizers, and 
mesmerizers to whom he was a mere child. Some 
of these made mesmerism a trade, and gave public 
lectures and experiments as a means of gaining no- 
toriety and filling their pockets. Others made their 
experiments in private circles, and from curiosity, or 
in the interests of science, and not unfrequently by 
way of amusement. Mr. Winslow devoted much 
time to a series of experiments intended to prove the 
reality of what he called the demonic element of 
human nature. He wished to be able to accept and 
explain the miracles recorded in sacred and profane 
history on natural principles, without the recognition 
of the supernatural. Jack Wheatley continued his 
experiments, apparently more in jest than in earnest, 
and was remarkably successful. He had no theory 
on the subject, said nothing of the use to which 
mesmerism might be applied, and never speculated 



34 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

on the cause of the mesmeric phenomena. He con- 
tented himself with producing them, and leaving 
others to use or explain them as they saw proper. 

A year had passed without my seeing Jack. In 
the winter of 1840 - 41, while on a visit to Boston, 
I met him one day accidentally in the street, and 
was startled at his altered appearance. His look 
was wild and oppressed, his face was pale and sal- 
low, his youth and bloom were gone, and his body 
was wasted to a skeleton. He made as if he would 
avoid me, and with reluctance and a certain timidity 
replied to my greeting. 

" Why, Jack, what is the matter ? " 

" Don't you see ? I see her night and day," he 
replied with a shudder, as if he'beheld some strange 
and horrible vision from which he would avert his 
looks, but could not. 

" See what ? " said I. " I see nothing." 

He trembled all over, and seemed unable to speak. 
Seeing that he had either lost his wits, or was fast 
losing them, I took his arm in mine, and with gentle 
violence led him to my lodgings, at no great distance, 
conducted him to my room, and induced him to re- 
pose himself on the sofa. I closed the door, and 
seated myself by his side. I took his hand, and 
caressed his forehead and temples as if he had been 
a child. He seemed soothed. " Tell me, Jack," 
said I, in a voice almost as gentle and affectionate 
as that of a mother, " tell me what has happened." 

" I am lost, I am damned." 



AN EXPLOSION. 35 

" Say not that. As long as life lasts no one is 
lost, and nothing is irreparable." 

" Life no longer lasts. I do not live. I killed 
her." 

" No, no. But of whom do you speak ? " 

" You did not know. I never told you. You 
seemed to be a cast-iron man, as Miss Martineau 
says of Mr. Calhoun, and disposed to put every sen- 
timent in your crucible, and subject it to your retorts 
and blowpipes." 

" But Mr. Calhoun has a heart, as I have had 
ample occasion to prove." 

" I was always light and trifling, careless, gay, and 
joyous, yet I truly and deeply loved." 

"And none the less deeply and truly because gay 
and joyous." 

" But you know nothing of love ? " 

" No man is always w T ise." 

" But you will laugh at me." 

" My dear Jack, there are few hearts without some 
little romance, in some hidden or unhidden corner. 
There are not many persons unwilling to listen to 
a story of true and genuine love." 

" I was young and foolish, but I loved one, and 
one whom I thought every way worthy, a thousand 
times worthy, of my love. I felt myself infinitely 
her inferior, and unworthy even to kiss the ground 
on which she had trodden." 

" That is easily comprehended." 

" Now you are laughing at me." 



36 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" No, I am not. But you may leave something 
to my imagination, if not to my experience. I do 
not doubt that she whom you loved had all imagin- 
able charms, all conceivable graces, and all possible 
and impossible perfections." 

" But my Isabel was the most beautiful, sweet, 
amiable, and glorious creature that ever gladdened 
the earth with her presence." 

" Unquestionably. He who doubts that his mis- 
tress is an angel, is divine, is a goddess, has his liver 
whole, and I will warrant him sound in wind and 
limb. The lover never finds his mistress mortal till 
after the wedding." 

" You are incorrigible. You promised not to 
laugh at me. Indeed, indeed, Doctor, I do not de- 
serve to be laughed at." 

" I own it, my dear Jack, and nothing is farther 
from my heart than to laugh at you. But do tell 
me what has happened. I am really grieved to see 
you so afflicted." 

" Well, I loved Isabel, and had the happiness of 
believing that she returned my love. I gained her 
consent, and that of her parents and my own, and 
we were only waiting till I was fairly established 
in my profession to be married. Notwithstanding 
Shakspeare's dictum, the course of our true love did 
run smooth. There never was a lover's quarrel be- 
tween us, and there were no obstacles interposed by 
friends, enemies, or fortune. My acquaintance acci- 
dentally formed with you brought me into company 



AN EXPLOSION. 37 

with Dr. P— , and interested me in Animal Mag- 
netism. In mere sport, as a pastime, I began trying 
my mesmeric powers on one and another of my 
young friends. Capital fun we found it. None of 
us dreamed of there being any harm in it, or that 
we might not sport w T ith it as we pleased without 
any unpleasant consequences. I know not how it 
was, but I proved to be a powerful magnetizer, al- 
though I was said not to have the right sort of tem- 
perament for a mesmerizer. My experiments rarely 
failed, and were almost always unusually brilliant. 

" One evening at a friend's house, where some ten 
or a dozen of my companions and acquaintances 
were assembled, I mesmerized a boy about twelve 
years old. I found him completely under my con- 
trol, and perfectly docile to all my intentions. His 
behavior was admirable. I asked him mentally a 
large number of questions which it was certain that 
in his normal state he could not answer, and which 
he answered explicitly, with surprising accuracy. He 
had never been taught music, and in his normal state 
could not distinguish even one tune from another. 
I willed him to seat himself at the piano, and play 
for us a favorite waltz of Mozart. He obeyed, and 
performed it with accuracy, with spirit, a delicacy 
of touch, and brilliancy of effect, which none of 
us had ever heard equalled, or even approached. 
I then mentally ordered him to sing us, to his own 
accompaniment, one or two songs from Fra Dia- 
volo, which were then in fashion. He obeyed. 
4 



38 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

We were all surprised, and began talking among 
ourselves of the apparent miracle, when, to our still 
greater astonishment, he commenced playing of his 
own accord a strange piece, which none of us 
knew or had ever heard, and which, for its wild and 
unearthly character, for its brilliancy, depth, and 
pathos, surpassed all that we had ever conceived of 
music. We were all entranced. Here was some 
agency not the boy's, not mine, not that of any one 
present. Such strains had never had mortal com- 
poser. 

" I knew not what to think, and so contrived not 
to think at all, but enjoyed the music r and looked 
no farther. Carpe diem, you know, was my philo- 
sophy. I saw I had a brilliant subject, and I re- 
solved to make the most of him. I had heard of the 
marvellous powers of clairvoyance and second sight 
exhibited by some somnambulists. I blindfolded the 
boy, and gave him a letter. He read it with ease. 
I placed another at the back of his neck, he read that 
also ; I placed another, folded up, on the back of his 
head. He told me who was the writer, described 
his appearance, his complexion, size, and character, 
with more accuracy than I could have done, although 
the writer was well known to me, and must have been 
a total stranger to the boy. I took the boy with me 
on a journey, that is, mentally. We stopped at Pro- 
vidence, went on to Stonington, took the steamer 
for New York, landed and went up Broadway, down 
the Bowery, and through several other streets. He 



AN EXPLOSION. 39 

named the hotels, churches, and other public build- 
ings we passed, and read the signs over the shop 
doors. We went up the Hudson, to Albany, from 
there on to Utica, Rochester, Niagara Falls, and 
then returned, and on our way back stopped at your 
house in Genesee county, with which you know I 
am familiar. We went into the library, and the 
laboratory, in each of which he named and accu- 
rately described the principal objects. Having come 
back, we took an excursion into the other world, of 
which he told us strange things, which none of us 
believed, for we were all Unitarians, Universalists, 
or unbelievers, and his revelations seemed to favor 
what is called Orthodoxy. 

" My betrothed was present at all these experi- 
ments. She was greatly excited. Time and again 
she wished that I would mesmerize her. She wished 
this much more after she had heard the boy describe 
what he saw in the other world. I know not why, 
but I shrunk from complying with her wish. I saw 
no harm in others being mesmerized, and I had, 
without any scruple, mesmerized young ladies by the 
dozen ; but some how or other I could not bear to 
have my Isabel mesmerized, or even to mesmerize 
her myself. I instinctively felt that there would be 
something indelicate in it, something hardly modest, 
and that it would be a sort of desecration. She was 
modest, retiring, even timid, but her curiosity was 
excited, and she would brook no denial. 

"A true daughter of Eve. Women are timid 



40 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

creatures, but will brave Satan himself to gratify 
their curiosity, or their passions." 

" That now is malicious." 

" Never mind ; go on." 

" I was at length obliged to consent, but only to 
magnetize her at her father's house, and at first only 
in presence of her mother or her sister, She yielded 
very readily to the mesmeric influence, and became 
a remarkable clairvoyant. She had, when in the 
magnetic slumber, not only a clear view of remote 
terrestrial things, of which she had no previous 
knowledge, and which were equally unknown to me, 
but also of heaven and hell, and revealed to me 
strange things of angels and spirits, .of the state of, 
departed souls, good and bad, arid of their inter- 
course with the living. We both became deeply 
interested, and took every opportunity to make our 
investigations. We were left much alone, and she 
remained in the mesmeric state from one to two 
hours almost every day or evening. If I was unable 
to visit her, she would, though I knew it not, invite 
some female friend to mesmerize her, for gradually 
she seemed to wish to live only in the mesmeric state, 
and appeared restless and uneasy when out of it. 
. Her physical system began to suffer. She com- 
plained, when awake, of a universal lassitude. The 
bloom faded from her cheek, her eye assumed a 
wild, lustreless glare, and her motions were heavy 
and languid. She was listless, absent, forgetful, 
taking little or no interest in anybody or any thing. 



AN EXPLOSION. 41 

I beheld her, as you may well believe, with great 
anxiety and alarm. 

" One evening, about two months ago, I visited 
her. I found her alone, and in a few minutes threw 
her into the mesmeric sleep, for it was only in that 
state that her mind retained its strength and bril- 
liancy. She was attacked with convulsions and 
spasms as I had never seen her before. I hastened 
to awake her. It was too late! I had killed her; 
and that countenance which had been so dear to 
me, which had so often beamed on me with the 
sweet smile of love, now bore only the expression of 
fear, horror, rage, and anguish. It was the face of a 
demon. It froze my blood to behold it. 

u I had my own grief to bear, I had to endure the 
tortures of my own remorse and utter despair, and to 
face the grief, silent, but deep, of her father, and the 
rage of her mother, who cursed me, cursed me as 
only a mother in the violence of her wrath and grief 
can curse. How I lived through that dreadful night 
I know not. The relations agreed to conceal the cir- 
cumstances of Isabel's death. I followed her to the 
tomb, and returned to my own home, blasted, wither- 
ed, worse than dead. 

"All this was bad enough, but worse followed. 
The day after the funeral, while sitting alone in my 
office, I saw, at a few feet from me, partly behind 
me, a grayish appearance, without any sharply de-- 
fined outline. I looked at it for a moment, and it 
assumed then the well-known form of her I the day 

4* . . '. 



42 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

before followed to the grave, and, horror of horrors, 
with that fearful expression of face with which she 
had died. It came nearer to me, I receded ; it fol- 
lowed, I rushed into the street ; it pursued, I turned 
aside my face, it turned as I turned, so as to be 
always within my view. From that day to this has 
it haunted me ; I have scarcely a moment's respite. 
Day or night, light or dark, with my eyes opened or 
closed, always does it stand before me, and glare on 
me with that terrible look. I cannot sleep ; I cannot 
eat; I have no rest. The only few moments of 
quiet I have had are those since I have been with you 
in this room. I do not see it now. O, it was a sad 
day for me when I chose Animal Magnetism for a 
plaything ! " 

I was much affected by Jack's sufferings. I was 
not surprised at the fatal effects of mesmerism on the 
young lady ;. for death, I had been assured, is no un- 
frequent result of w T hat the physicians who practise 
it call its injudicious use. The form which haunted 
him gave me no uneasiness, as it was, in my opi- 
nion, clearly a case of hallucination, a species of 
monomania, well known to the physicians of our 
lunatic hospitals, and our writers on mania or in- 
sanity. The shock my young friend- had received 
had probably produced some slight lesion of the 
brain, and the imagination gave shape to the decep- 
tive appearance, as in dreams we see often repro- 
duced, following us, preceding us, or dancing around 
us, the shapes and images w 7 hich had deeply im- 



AN EXPLOSION. 43 

pressed us when awake. But I was fond of poor 
Jack, and my great anxiety was to console him, and 
to prevent what might be only a temporary halluci- 
nation from becoming a confirmed insanity. Find- 
ing him better when with me, I persuaded him, with 
the consent of his family, who understood very little 
of his case, and feared for his reason, to accompany 
me to my home in Western New York, and to place 
himself under my care. 

He remained very much depressed for several 
months, but gradually his appetite returned ; he was 
able to get some sleep, and his health began to im- 
prove. The vision did not entirely leave him, espe- 
cially when alone, or not with me, but its visits 
became less and less frequent, and less and less ap- 
palling. The expression of the face gradually became 
I less horrible, and more human, but still indicated 
great suffering and profound grief. In the course of 
a year, however, he seemed to have recovered, and 
returned to Boston. But in proportion as he seemed 
to be regaining his health and peace of mind, as far 
as peace of mind he could hope to have, a very sin- 
gular change began to come over me. 

I had spent my time, since leaving college, in lite- 
rary ease and scientific pursuits. I had had few 
strong or violent passions to trouble me, and few 
things had wounded me very deeply. I had had, it 
is true, my little romances, but not being of a senti- 
mental turn, and having a strong constitution and 
most excellent health, they had hardly rippled the 



44 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

surface of the ordinarily smooth current of my life. 
I had pursued science as a pastime. I took an easy, 
pleasant interest in it, but had no passion for it. I 
had no enthusiasm, and found in the pursuit only a 
gentle excitement, as in reading one of Jarnes's no- 
vels, which, by the by, are the best of all novels, for 
you can take them up or lay them down when you 
please. Spare me, I always say, those much-be- 
praised works of fiction which deal with strong and 
violent passions, which produce in the reader a pain- 
fully intense interest, and which, when you once be- 
gin reading them, you cannot lay down till you have 
read to the end, I avoid reading such a novel, as I 
avoid a night's debauch. 

But now a change came over me. I became rest- 
less, and had an intense longing to explore the 
secrets of things, and to look within the veil with 
which nature kindly shrouds her laboratory., I long- 
ed to make myself acquainted with the primal ele- 
ments of being, and to be able to command them ; 
I burned to enlarge not only my knowledge, but my 
forces. I would be able to raise the tempest on the 
deep, to fly through the air, to wield the lightning, 
to leave and enter my body at will, to succor my 
friends or overwhelm my enemies at a distance. I 
would read the stars, comprehend their influences, 
and command their courses. I envied the old Chal- 
dean sages, the mighty magicians of the East, and 
the wizards and weird sisters of the North. Why 
should it not be literally true that mind is omnipo- 
tent over matter ? Is not man called the lord of this 



AN EXPLOSION. 45 

lower creation ? Why then should he fear, or not be 
able to exercise his lordship ? Had we not seen the 
wonders of science ? Had not man learned to make 
the lightnings his steeds, and flames of fire his minis- 
ters ? What are the mighty forces of nature ? May 
not man seize them, use them, and wield their might 
at his pleasure ? 

Such thoughts were new to me, still more new 
were those intense longings. The horizon of human 
power seemed to enlarge around me, and I seemed 
to rise in the majesty and might of my nature. I 
was becoming, as it were, a new man. The ethe- 
real fire within had hitherto slumbered. It was now 
kindled, and its flames aspired to their native hea- 
ven. J would no longer be the puny thing I had 
been. Henceforth I would be a man ; a man in the 
full and lofty sense of the word. Now suddenly my 
soul seemed to grow, and to become too large for 
my body, against which it beat as the prisoner beats 
his head against the w T alls of his prison-house. I 
knew not then the source or nature of these feelings, 
and I cherished them as precious intimations of my 
affinity with the Origin and Source of all things. 
At times I was elated ; my eye glowed with an un- 
wonted fire, and sparkled with an unearthly bril- 
liancy ; my step was elastic, and my whole frame 
seemed to have received new youth and buoyancy, 
and to be in some measure withdrawn from the ordi- 
nary laws of gravitation. It seemed as if all the 
great forces of nature flowed into me, and become 
subject to my will. Nothing was impossible to me. 



46 



CHAPTER V. 



SOME PROGRESS. 



Hitherto I had neither been magnetized myself 
nor magnetized others. I had read the principal 
works which had been written in French and Eng- 
lish on the subject, and had witnessed and carefully 
analyzed the experiments made by my friends ; but 
now I madly resolved to make experiments for my- 
self. 

A portion of the winter of 1841-2 I spent in 
Philadelphia, and as my acquaintance was princi- 
pally with the Hicksite Quakers, Unitarians, Swe- 
denborgians, Universalists, and open unbelievers in 
all religion, I was, as a matter of course, thrown into 
the very circles where Animal Magnetism, as well as 
all conceivable novelties and absurdities, were the 
order of the day. My friends and associates were 
nearly all philanthropists and world-reformers. There 
were among them seers and seeresses, enthusiasts 
and fanatics, socialists and communists, abolitionists 
and anti-hangmen, radicals and women's-rights men 
of both sexes ; all professing the deepest and most 
disinterested love for mankind, and claiming to be 
moved by the single desire to do good to the race. 
All agreed that hitherto every thing had gone wrong ; 



SOME PROGRESS. 47 

all agreed in denouncing all forms of religion and go- 
vernment that had hitherto obtained amongst men; 
all agreed in declaiming against the clergy of all de- 
nominations, in manifesting their indignation against 
all political and civil rule, and whatever tended in 
the least to restrain the passions of individuals or 
the multitude, in asserting the wonderful progress of 
the human race during the last hundred years, and 
in predicting that a new era was about to dawn for 
the w T orld ; but beyond this I could find scarcely a 
point on which any two of them were not at logger- 
heads. 

I cannot say that the differences I found among 
these excellent people when it concerned their phi- 
lanthropic projects or their various schemes of world- 
reform, edified me much, but I was charmed with 
their disinterestedness, with their zeal, and their su- 
periority to the restraints of popular prejudice, and 
what they stigmatized as conventionalism. I was 
above all delighted to observe the new importance 
assumed in behalf of woman; and it was a real 
pleasure to hear a charming young lady, whose 
face a painter might have chosen for his model, in a 
sweet musical voice, and a gentle and loving look, 
which made you all unconsciously take her hand in 
yours, defend our great grandmother Eve, and main- 
tain that her act, which an ungrateful world had 
held to have been the source of all the vice, the 
crime, the sin and misery of mankind, was an act 
of lofty heroism, of noble daring, of pure disinterest- 



48 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

ed love for man. Adam, but for her, would have 
tamely submitted to the tyrannical order he had re- 
ceived, and the race would never have known how 
to distinguish between good and evil. How, with the 
sweet young lady — I see and hear her now — sitting 
on a stool near me, laying her hand in the fervor of 
her argument on mine, and looking up with all the 
witchery of her eyes into my face, how could I fail 
to be convinced that man is cold, calculating, selfish, 
and cowardly, and that the world cannot be reform- 
ed without the destruction of the male (it might be 
called the mal) organization of society, the elevation 
of woman to her proper sphere, and the infusion into 
the government and management of public and pri- 
vate affairs, some portion of the love, the daring, the 
enthusiasm, and disinterestedness of woman's heart ? 
There was nothing to be said in reply. 

But alas ! unhappy Saint Simonians ; you believ- 
ed also that the evils endured by the race were owing, 
in great measure, to the fact that society had hitherto 
been organized and governed by men as distinguish- 
ed from women, and therefore without the female 
element. You would in your reorganization of the 
world, avoid this sad mistake. You could not 
agree on the definitive organization of mankind till 
you had obtained the voice of woman. But how 
obtain that from woman, the slave of the old male 
organization ? A Pere supreme you had found, but 
a woman to sit by his side as Mere supreme, and to 
exercise with him equal authority, you found not, 



SOME PROGRESS. 49 

and could proceed no further. You selected twelve 
apostles, and sent them forth in search of a Mere 
supreme. They searched France, England, Germany, 
Italy, all Europe, even to the harem of the Grand 
Turk, but they found her not, and returned and re- 
ported their ill-success. Then fear and consterna- 
tion seized you; then fell despair took possession 
of your souls ; then you saw all your hopes blasted, 
and you separated and dissolved in thin air. Per- 
haps, if you had sent your apostles to the United 
States, to Philadelphia or Boston, you might have 
succeeded, and Pere Enfantin not have vanished 
from Paris, the capital of the world, to waste him- 
self as an engineer in the service of Mehemet AIL 

It was a real pleasure to find these men of ad- 
vanced views, and these women of burning hearts 
and strong minds, who had outgrown the narrow 
prejudices of their sex, all substituting the love of 
mankind for the love of God. They all agreed that 
philanthropy was the highest virtue, and the only 
virtue. Charity was an obsolete virtue, no longer 
in use, and not suited to our advanced stage of 
human progress. That taught us to love man in 
God, but we have learned to love God in man; that 
is, man himself, without any reference to God. This 
was charming, and emancipated us from our thral- 
dom to priests, and all old-fashioned religion. What 
was better still, I found that even this noble philan- 
thropy received a very liberal interpretation, and did 
not interfere at all with those pleasant passions and 



50 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

vices, called anger, spite, envy, &c. It was onlj^a 
love of man in the abstract, the love of mankind in 
general, which permitted the most sublime hatred or 
indifference to all men in particular. Wonderful 
nineteenth century ! I exclaimed ; wonderful seers 
and seeresses, and most delightful moralists are 
these modern world-reformers ! 

In this pleasant and delightful circle mesmerism 
attracted its full share of attention. I met it in al- 
most every circle where I happened to be present. 
It seemed to take the place of cards, music, and 
dancing. One evening I was at a friend's house, 
where were collected some twenty-five or thirty gen- 
tlemen and ladies, or perhaps I should say, ladies 
and gentlemen, mainly on my account, for I was, in 
a small way, something of a lion, and our people 
are great in lionizing whenever they have an op- 
portunity, as Dickens, Kossuth, Padre Gavazzi, and 
others hardly less worthy can abundantly testify. 
Indeed, our people are democrats only from envy 
and spite. In their souls they are the most aristo- 
cratic people in the world, and would be so avow- 
edly, only they have no legitimate aristocracy. De- 
mocracy has its origin in the feeling, — since I am 
as good as you, and since I cannot be an aristocrat, 
you shall be a democrat with me. 

In this private party there were two or three som- 
nambulists, and twice that number of mesmerizers. 
My friend, Mr. Winslow, from Boston, was present, 
and also Mr. Cotton, who was in the city on some 



SOME PROGRESS. 51 

business pertaining to holding a world's convention 
in London for evangelizing France, Italy, and other 
benighted countries of Europe. Mr. Winslow was 
in high spirits. He was sure that he was making 
out his proofs that there is a demonic element in 
human nature, never once reflecting, that if demonic 
it is not human. 

" I am," said he, " on the point of rehabilitating 
history. Miracles, divinations, sorceries, magic, the 
black arts, which surprise us in all history, sacred 
and profane, and which are either denied outright, 
or ascribed to supernatural agencies, I think I shall 
I be able to accept, as facts, as real phenomena, and 
explain on natural principles. I think I have in 
mesmerism an explanation of them all." 

" So you imagine that with mesmerism you may 
take your place with the magicians of Egypt, and 
enter into a successful contest with Moses," said Mr. 
Cotton. " You forget that those magicians were 
discomfited, and at the third trial were obliged to 
give up and acknowledge themselves beaten. ' The 
finger of God is here.' " 

" Moses was a superior mesmerizer, and he mes- 
merized for a good, and they for a bad purpose, 
which makes all the difference in the world," replied 
Mr. Winslow. 

" But these magicians, then, could exercise the 
mesmeric power up to a certain point, and for evil ; 
I thought it was a doctrine of mesmerizers, that 
none but virtuous and honest men could mesmerize, 



52 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

and these only for a good and honest purpose," said 
Mr. Cotton. 

" I am not," said I, " particularly interested in ex- 
plaining what the Germans call the Night- Side of 
nature, or the marvellous deeds recorded in sacred 
and profane history ; I would be able to do those 
deeds, reproduce those wonderful phenomena, and 
exert myself a power over the primordial elements 
or primitive forces of nature, be they spirits, be they 
what they will. I am tired of being pent up within 
this narrow cage, and of being the slave of every 
external influence. I would master nature ; ride 
upon the whirlwind and direct the storm. There 
may, for aught I know, be an element of truth in 
the marvellous machinery of the Arabian Nights 
Entertainments, and something more than the ex- 
travagances of an Oriental imagination in those 
tales of magic, of good and evil Genii. What, if the 
tale of Aladdin's Lamp were true ? Who dare say 
that the river and ocean gods, the Naiads, the Dry- 
ads, Hamadryads, Pan and his reed, Apollo and 
his lyre, Mercury and his wand, the supernal and 
infernal gods of classic poetry, were all mere crea- 
tures of the poetic imagination? Perhaps even the 
diablerie of modern German romance, of Hoffman, 
Baron de Fouque, and others, has more of reality 
than most readers suspect." 

"All the gods of the Gentiles were devils," replied 
Mr. Cotton, " and to a considerable extent I concede 
the reality you intimate. There are good angels and 



SOME PROGRESS. 53 

bad, and both have intercourse with mankind. The 
air swarms with evil spirits, with devils, fallen angels, 
endowed with a more than human intelligence, and 
a more than human power. These are under a chief 
called Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, who seeks to se- 
duce men from their allegiance to God, to make them 
receive him for their master, to put him in the place 
of God, and to pay him divine honors. It was this 
fallen angel, the prince of this world as St. Paul 
calls him, and the prince of the powers of the air, 
who everywhere and unceasingly besieges the Christ- 
ian, and against whom we have to be constantly on 
the guard, that the ancient Gentiles literally wor- 
shipped as God, and it is these evil spirits, these 
powers of the air, that swarm around us, and infest 
all nature, that ancient classic poetry celebrates, and 
that your modern philosophers w^ouid persuade us 
were mere poetic fancies." 

" The powers or forces themselves, I concede," 
said Mr. Winslow, " but I do not recognize their 
personality, nor their superhuman character." 

" Perhaps," said I, " Mr. "Winslow is a little too 
hasty in supposing them to be the innate power or 
force of human nature. This power exerted by the 
mesmerizer may well be natural and yet not be 
human. It may be one of the mighty forces of uni- 
versal nature, which the mesmerizer has the secret of 
using or bringing to bear in the accomplishment of 
his own purposes. In mesmerism, perhaps, we may 
find the key to the mysteries of nature, and the secret 

5* 



54 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

of rendering practically available all the great and 
mighty powers at work in nature's laboratory, so 
that a man may learn to strengthen himself with all 
the force of the entire universe." 

" The power you speak of," said Mr. Wilson, an 
ex-Unitarian parson, and who passed for a Tran- 
scendentaiist, " I believe to be very real. We some- 
times ascribe it to the will, and it is true that under 
certain relations the will has great energy, and is 
well nigh invincible. Yet it is not, I apprehend, so 
much the energy of the will itself as of faith, which 
brings the will into harmony with the primordial 
laws of the universe, and strengthens it by all the 
forces of nature. * If ye had faith as a grain of 
mustard seed,' said Jesus, ' ye could say to this 
mountain, be removed and planted in yonder sea, 
and it should obey you.' I am far from being able to 
prescribe the limits of full, undoubting, and unwaver- 
ing faith. Faith is thaumaturgic, always a miracle- 
worker, and if we could only undertake with a calm 
and full confidence of success, I have little doubt but 
the meanest of us might work greater miracles than 
any recorded in history. ' If ye believe, ye shall do 
greater works than these.' " 

" There is more in this power of faith than re- 
ceived philosophy has fathomed. By it one's eyes 
are opened, and he seems to penetrate the pro- 
foundest mysteries of the universe, even to the es- 
sence of the Godhead. We may mark it in all our 
undertakings. Whatever we attempt, nothing doubt- 



SOME PROGRESS. 55 

ing, we are almost sure to accomplish. Let me, as 
a public speaker, desire to produce a certain effect, 
and let me have full confidence that I shall succeed, 
and I am sure not to fail. Let me utter a sentiment, 
with my whole soul absorbed in it, confident that it 
is going right to the hearts of my hearers, and it 
goes there. Whenever I am conscious in what I 
am saying, of this calm, undoubting faith, I am sure 
of my audience. I no sooner open my lips than I 
have them under my control, and I can do with 
them as I please. When I have felt this faith in 
what I was about to utter, I have felt before uttering 
it, its effect upon the assembly, and my whole frame 
has been sensible of something like an electric shock, 
and it seemed that my audience and I were con- 
nected by a magnetic chain. In conversing with a 
friend, in whom I have full faith, and to whom I can 
speak with full confidence, I have felt the same. 
Our souls seem to be melted into one, to move 
with one and the same will, and each to be exalted 
and strengthened by the combined power of both. 
Then rise we into the upper regions of truth, far 
above the unaided flight of either. Heaven opens 
to us, and w T e behold the hidden things of God. 
Something the same is felt also when one goes forth 
jn love with nature, and yields to her gentle and 
hallowing influences. We inhale power with her 
fragrant odors, become conscious of purer, loftier 
and holier thoughts and feelings, and form stronger 
and nobler resolutions. 7 ' 

"All that," said Mr. Cotton, "is common enough, 



56 THE SPIRIT-RAPrER. 

but it is easily explained by sympathy and imagina- 
tion." 

"But," Mr. Wilson replied, "what, then, is the 
power of sympathy or imagination ? That is a ques- 
tion I cannot answer. I yield to the power, enjoy 
it, and question it not. Begin to question it, and it 
is gone. I know well that philosophers call the 
power I speak of under one aspect, love, under 
another, sympathy, under another, imagination, un- 
der still another, faith, but what it is in itself they 
cannot tell me. Be it what it will, it is demonic, 
supernatural, an element in human nature, of which 
men in all ages have had glimpses, but of which 
none of us have as yet had any thing more. The 
history of our race everywhere bristles with prodi- 
gies. These prodigies were once regarded as mira- 
cles, and supposed to be wrought by the finger of 
God ; now an unbelieving age treats them as impos- 
tures, cheats, fabrications, proving only people's love 
of the marvellous, their natural proneness to super- 
stition, and the ease with which they can be gulled 
by the crafty and the designing. I believe them, for 
the most part, real. I believe that there are times 
when man has a power over the elements, and can 
make the spirits obey him. Who knows but the 
time may come, perhaps is now near, when the law 
by which this power operates will be discovered, and 
this power, which has hitherto been irregular and 
transient in its manifestations, will became common 
and regular, and therefore bear the marks of a fixed 
and permanent law of nature ? 



SOME PROGRESS. 57 

" But, call it what you will, it is not identical 
with the human will, nor in my opinion is it, strictly 
speaking, a property of human nature. It is an 
overshadowing, an all-pervading power, identical, 
most likely, with that Power which creates and man- 
ifests itself in the universe. "We can avail ourselves 
of it, not because it is ours, but by placing ourselves 
in harmony with it, within its focal range, and suf- 
fering its rays to be all concentred in us." 

" That is substantially my own view,'' remarked 
Mr. Winslow, " and I regard mesmerism as reveal- 
ing the regular and permanent means by which we 
can avail ourselves of that creative and miracle- 
working power. I do not pretend that man is thau- 
maturgic in himself, as distinguished from the Being 
from whom his life emanates, but by virtue of his 
union with the Fountain of All Force." 

" I think," said Mr. Sowerby, an ex- Methodist 
elder, " that by magnetism, we shall be able to ex- 
plain the operations of the Holy Ghost, and the 
mysteries of regeneration." 

" More likely," interrupted Mr. Cotton, " the ope- 
rations of Satan, and the Mystery of Iniquity." 

" Yes, but in a sense thou dost not mean," inter- 
posed Obediah Mott, a Hicksite Quaker. " Thou 
knowest how difficult it is for thee to explain the 
Popish miracles, many of which thou knowest come 
j exceedingly well attested. Mesmerism will show 
thee, that they were wrought by mesmeric influ- 



58 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" But I have no wish to explain Popish miracles 
on a principle that would take from Christian mira- 
cles all their value. I hate popery, but I love the 
Gospel more." 

The conversation was continued for some time, in 
the small circle around me. In another part of the 
room they had got a somnambulist, and were mak- 
ing various experiments. When the larger part of 
the company had dispersed, I requested Mr. Wins- 
low to try it' he could not mesmerize me. He did 
nor think he should succeed. He thought I had not 
the sort of temperament to be magnetized ; that I 
had too strong a will, too robust a constitution, and 
quite too vigorous health. It would at any rate re- 
quire far more mesmeric power than he had to sub- 
due me. However, he would try, and do what he 
could. 

I seated myself in an arm chair, with my feet to 
the south, and Mr. Winslow began with his passes. 
The first ten minutes he produced not the slightest 
effect, for I resisted him by the whole force of my 
will. At length I closed my eyes, and resigned my- 
self to his influence. I now became aware of his 
passes, though they were made without actually 
touching me. It seemed as if slight electric sparks 
were emitted from the tips of his lingers, producing 
a slight, but agreeable, and as it were a cooling sen- 
sation. I felt slight spasmodic affections at the pit 
oi my Btomacb, which gradually became violent, 
My arms made involuntary motions, and my legs 



SOME PROGRESS. 59 

and feet felt light and flew up as he extended his 
passes over them. I had not the least inclination to 
p, but found that he was actually exerting an 
influence over my body greater than at all pleased 
me. I tried, and found that I could arrest his influ- 
ence if I willed, and that he had power over me 
only so lon^ as I offered no voluntary opposition. 
I alternately yielded and resisted, and found that he 
had no power to overcome my own will. He ope- 
rated for about an hour, with no other effects than 
those I have mentioned, and gave up the task of 
putting me to sleep as hopeless. The most remark- 
able thing about in that I recollect, though it did not 
much strike me at the time, was, that although my 
eyes were closed, I saw or seemed to see distinctly. 
slight luminous appearances at the ends of his fin- 
gers as he made his passes. These luminous ap- 
pearances were in rapid motion, and seemed of a 
bluish tinge edged with yellowish white. 

There was nothing in the experiment that could 
establish the reality of the mesmeric influence to by- 
standers, but there was enough to satisfy me that it 
was neither jugglery nor imagination. I could easi- 
ly see from the experiment, that upon persons differ- 
ently constituted from myself, less accustomed to 
self-control, and to the quiet analysis of their own 
feelings, much greater and more striking effect must 
have been produced. 

I never submitted myself to an experiment of the 
sort again. I found that in my own case it was 



60 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

quite unnecessary, and that I could do all that the 
mesmerized could without being thrown into the 
somnambulic state. I commenced from that time 
to practise mesmerism myself. I entered upon a 
course of experiments which carried me much far- 
ther than the masters I was acquainted with. I 
found, that while no machinery for magnetizing 
was absolutely indispensable, yet passes with the 
hand were serviceable, and that the tub and rod of 
Mesmer, which had been discarded, were of great 
assistance. Metallic balls, properly prepared, and 
magnetized, and placed in the hand of the person 
to be affected, as practised by the Electro-Biologists, 
very much facilitated the process. I was thus brought 
back to Mesmer, and induced to reject the doctrine 
of the ultra-spiritualists, who would have it that the 
effects are produced by the simple will acting on the 
will of the person to be mesmerized. There was 
certainly a fluid in the case, whether electric, mag- 
netic, or as the Baron Riechenbach would say, odic, 
and w r hether it is to be regarded as efficient cause or 
only as an instrument, as maintained by a recent 
French author, who seems to have studied the whole 
subject with rare patience, and yet rarer good sense. 



61 



CHAPTER VI. 



TABLE TURNING. 



The point to which I at first directed my atten- 
tion was to ascertain the power, which, by means of 
mesmerism, I might acquire over the elemental forces 
of nature. I found that with or without actual contact 

, I could at will paralyze the whole body of another, 
subject it in great measure to my own will, and force 
it to obey my bidding. I could render it preternatu- 
rally weak and preternaturally strong. I found also 
that I could produce all these effects at a distance, 

i by means of magnetized inanimate objects. For 
instance, I would magnetize a bunch of flowers, and 
a person knowing nothing of what I had done, who 

i should take them up and smell of them, would ex- 
hibit all the usual phenomena of the mesmerized. 
Here it was evident that the mesmeric power, what- 
ever it might be, could act directly on matter, and 
lodge itself in a material object. It was clear then that 
the mesmeric phenomena had a real objective cause, 
and therefore could not be the effects either of ima- 
gination or hallucination. Here was a most striking 
and important fact, and one which entirely refuted 
! the ultra spiritualism of the majority of mesmerizers. 
My experiments in clairvoyance and second sight 

6 






62 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

were equally surprising in their results. The theory 
of those who conceded the facts was, that in some 
inexplicable way, the somnambulist uses the brain of 
him with whom he or she is en rapport, and therefore 
is restricted in the clairvoyant power to the images 
already in that brain. I mesmerize, say a young 
woman. In her mesmeric state she becomes clair- 
voyant. She can see with my organs of vision what- 
ever I myself can see, or have seen, but nothing else. 
She can tell my most secret thoughts and intentions, 
or those of any one with whom she is en rapport, but 
nothing more. She can answer correctly any ques- 
tion the answer to which is known to the interroga- 
tor, but not questions the answer to which is un- 
known to him. But repeated and well-attested 
experiments prove to the contrary. Nothing is more 
common than for her to answer correctly questions 
equally unknown to herself and to those with 
whom she is placed in communication, and in cases 
where it is certain the answ r er could not be known 
by any human means to either. The magnetic 
power was, then, clearly a medium of knowledge dis- 
tinct from the brain or mind of the magnetizer, or 
individual with whom the magnetized is en rapport 
What tends to confirm this is the surprising fact that 
persons mesmerized by a mesmerized glass of water, 
or bunch of flowers, manifest equally a superhuman 
knowledge. I passed one day by a boarding-school, 
and threw over the wall, unseen myself, a bunch of 
flowers which I had mesmerized. One of the young 



Iadi< ticked it up, smellcd i v 

in \i<-.r bosom. A!mo-t m-v 

ly affected, seemed b< ft as OM pOS- 

hf'.-.v-d. But important to note is, 

■ and described, a iriy proved, thii 

j perfect accural eh none 

the school, and neither she nor I, had a 
means of know to language 

but ESnglisb, an< cxmld understand and answer 

readily i n any language in which she on- 

ed, could and did foretell eve; e parti- 

culars of time arid place when tbey would happen. 
Moreover, the poor girJ J of feeling 

herself under a foreign power, and one which made 
her say and do things sfa she felt, eve:. 

moment, the greatest repugnance. It lear, 

then, that the mesmeric po a not a mere blind 

force, but acted from intelligence and will, and an in- 
telligence and will fan mine, for how could I 
lodge my intelligence and will in a bunch of flowers, 
and render thern there more powerful than in myself? 
Clearly the force was nol exclusively material, uu. 
matter can be end \ ith intelligence and wilL 

I was somewhat puzzled, it is true, but 1 was re- 
solved to continue my experiments] and wrest from 
nature, if possible her last secret I soon found that 
it was not necessary to operate with other- ; that I 
bad the clairvoyant power myself, With a slight 

effort I could throw myself into the mesmeric state. 

A . soon as 1 found myself in this state I seemed no 






64 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

longer master of myself. I suffered in entering 
into it, and on coming out of it, convulsions more or 
less violent. While in it, I felt oppressed at the pit 
of my stomach, and my organs of speech seemed to 
be used by another. When I spoke, it was clear to 
me that I heard a voice at the pit of my stomach, 
speaking the words, and I was perfectly conscious 
of struggling not to say things which, nevertheless, 
were uttered by my organs. If in this state I sat 
down to write, my arm and pen seemed seized upon 
by a foreign power, and moved and guided without 
any agency of mine. What I wrote I knew not, 
and had never had in my mind till it came oft' the 
end of my pen, and I read it as written down. Evi- 
dently the power was distinct from me, and operated 
by a will not my own. 

But I was not at all pleased to find myself sub- 
ject even momentarily to a foreign power. I did not 
choose to let another use my organs, and to suffer 
my own will to lie in abeyance. The question 
arose, whether the same power could not be made 
to operate without using my organs. If I could 
mesmerize a material object, and by that mesmerize 
persons, why might I not mesmerize by it other ma- 
terial objects, and make them serve as organs to this 
power ? I tried the experiment. I mesmerized a 
bunch of flowers and laid them on a table in my 
room, with the will that they should communicate 
to the table their mesmeric virtue. Immediately the 
table began to move, and to dance round the room, 



TABLE TURNING. 65 

to raise itself from the floor, to balance itself on two 
legs, then on one leg, to come to me or remove from 
me as I willed. I was delighted. I found the force 
could be communicated to the table. I wished to 
ascertain whether this power was intelligent or not. 
I required the table, if it could understand me, to 
give two raps with one of its feet. Immediately it 
did so. Then I required it, by the same sign, to tell 
me, whether it understood me by virtue of the mes- 
meric force. It gave the sign. Then I requested it 
to tell me, in the same way, whether this mesmeric 
force is one of the forces of nature, like electricity 
or magnetism, or whether it is a spirit. There was 
no answer. Is it, I asked, a spirit ? No answer. 
If not a spirit, let the table, I said, strike with one 
foot. No movement. I went to the table, and found 
it, as it were, nailed to the floor. I could not move 
it. I am a strong man, of far more than ordinary 
physical strength, and was then in its full posses- 
sion. The table was a light card-table, but with all 
my strength, repeatedly put forth, I could not so 
much as raise one end of it. This was extraor- 
dinary. I sat down on the sofa at a little distance. 
Immediately I began to hear slight raps, apparently 
under the table. Very soon they became louder, and 
seemed to be sometimes on the table, and sometimes 
under it ; sometimes they seemed to come from a 
corner of the room, and sometimes from under the 
floor. I knew not what to make of them, but I felt 
no alarm, and remained calm and undisturbed, in the 
6* 



66 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

full possession of all my faculties. In some six or 
eight minutes they ceased, and then I saw the bunch 
of flowers which still lay on the table, taken up 
without visible agency, and carried and placed in 
a porcelain vase on the mantle shelf. I was sure I 
was surrounded by invisible and mysterious agen- 
cies, but I began to apprehend that I was in the 
condition of the Magician's apprentice, sung by 
Goethe, who had overheard the word by which the 
master evoked the spirits, but had forgotten or had 
not learned that by which he dismissed them. I 
however retained my equanimity, and felt that I had 
gained at least something. 

The next day I tried my experiments anew. This 
time I merely mesmerized the table. It soon began 
to move, raising itself about six inches from the 
floor, and whirling round like a dancing dervish. It 
seemed animated by a capricious or rather a mock- 
ing spirit, and it was some time before I could make 
it behave with a little sobriety. But I had spent the 
greater part of the night in consulting an old work 
on magic, which some years before I picked up on 
one of the Quais of Paris. It was written chiefly in 
characters and hieroglyphics, which at first I could 
not decipher ; but at length I stumbled upon what 
I found to be a key to their meaning, and which 
was scarcely any meaning at all. However, I ob- 
tained one or two significant hints, and I went arm- 
ed with a new power. I held a long dialogue with 
the table, which, however, I shall not record. I as- 



table tl'rm:- 

certained the origin of the raps, how to produce 
them, and how to read them. But this was but a 
trifle. I would have the power visible to my e 

submissive to my orders, and speak to me in p] 
and intelligible language, properly so called. I ob- 
tained a promise that this should come in due time, 
but that for the present I must suffer the force to re- 
main invisible, and be content with a language ■;: 
mere arbitrary signs. 

I was informed that I was on the eve of gratify- 
ing my most secret and ardent wish, and that I 
should have, in full measure, the knowledge and 
power I craved. But I was not yet prepared, inas- 
much as I craved them for an irreligious end. I was 
moved by no noble motive. I was moved by curi- 
osity, and the love of power, for my own sake, not 
from love and sympathy with mankind. I was not 
in harmony with the great principles ■:: nature, and 
did not seek the real end oi the universe. I needed 
purification, a sublimation of my affections, and an 
elevation of my aims. I had devoted myself to the 
physical sciences, which was all very well, but I had 
neglected moral science, which was no: well. I had 
only partially imbibed the spirit of the age. and t 
no part in the great movements of the day ; felt no 
interest in the great questions oi social amelioration 
and progress. I had no sympathy with the poorest 
and most numerous class, and made no efforts to 
emancipate the slave, or to elevate woman to her 
proper sphere in social and political life. I did not 



68 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

properly love my race, and had no due appreciation 
of humanity. I had great talents, great abilities, 
and might, if I would, make myself the Messiah of 
the nineteenth century. 

But what had I done ? What good cause could 
boast of having had me for its friend and advocate ? 
Had I aided the Moral Reform Association ? Had 
I raised my voice in behalf of the Abolitionists ? 
Had Owen or Fourier found me a coadjutor in 
time of need ? Had I risked my popularity in 
defending new and unpopular sects, those prophets 
of the future ? Or had I given my sympathy to 
those noble spirits everywhere moving society, and 
risking their lives to overthrow the tyranny of church 
and state, to conquer liberty, and to raise up the 
down-trodden millions of mankind ? No, no ; I had 
done nothing of all this. I might have been kind 
and useful to this or that individual, and sympathized 
w^ith suffering when immediately under my eyes, and 
removable or mitigable by my individual effort ; but 
I had not sympathized with humanity, and labored 
to relieve the poor and destitute, to enlighten the 
ignorant and superstitious of remote and neglected 
regions. The age is philanthropic, and love is the 
great miracle-worker of our times. In love you 
place yourself in harmony with the source of all 
things, make yourself one with God, and possessor 
of his omnipotence. Learn to love, associate your- 
self heart and soul with the movement party of the 
times, and you will soon render yourself capable of 



TABLE TURNING. 69 

receiving an answer to your questions and your 
wishes. 

It must not be supposed that all this was told me 
at once, or in plain, direct terms. It was told me 
only a little at a time, and in a very indirect and 
cumbersome mode of communication. It required 
several weeks daily communing with my mesmer- 
ized table, and in spelling out the raps with which 
I was favored. But though it reproved me, I was 
still delighted. The power was good, and this ac- 
corded with my previous conviction. I regarded the 
power which, by mesmerism, was brought into play, 
as one of the primordial laws or elemental forces of 
nature, and as nature was good, as it worked always 
to a good end, of course I could hope to avail my- 
self of it only in proportion as I myself became 
good and devoted to the end to which nature herself 
works. God will work with and for us, only as we 
work with and for him ; that is, for the end for which 
he himself wmks. As to the intelligence apparently 
possessed by this force, that w r as in harmony with 
what of philosophy I had. Is not God infinite, uni- 
versal intelligence ? and is he not the original and 
similitude of the universe ? What, then, is the uni- 
verse itself but an emanation of infinite and uni- 
versal intelligence. All creatures participate their 
creator, for they are nothing without him, and there- 
fore all that exists must participate intelligence, or 
be a participated intelligence, and, of course, the 
higher the order of existence, the greater and more 



70 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

comprehensive its intelligence. All nature bears evi- 
dence that its laws are the laws of reason, and that 
its primitive forces are intelligent forces. How, then, 
should this force not be intelligent, and if intelligent, 
far more intelligent than I ? 

I resolved to prepare for placing myself in imme- 
diate relation with infinite power and intelligence. 
I thought I caught a glimpse of a deeper signifi- 
cance in the words, " ye shall be as gods," than had 
been generally suspected, and I began to think in 
real earnest that my sweet lady friend in Philadel- 
phia, who had so eloquently and lovingly defended 
Eve in eating the forbidden fruit, was quite right, 
and that her disobedience was really a brave and 
heroic act. Man could really become as a god, but 
the priests had invented the prohibition to prevent 
him. The god of the priests, then, could not be the 
true God, and Satan, instead of being regarded as 
the enemy, should be, as the author of Festus seems 
to teach, loved and honored as the friend of man. 
A new light seemed to break in at once upon my 
mind. The world had hitherto worshipped a false 
god ; it had called evil good, and good evil ; it had 
enshrined in its temples the enemy of man, and 
chained to the Caucasian rock that god Prometheus, 
who was the true and noble friend and benefactor of 
the race. 



71 



CHAPTER VII. 

A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 

Full of my new resolution, I immediately set 
myself at work to carry it into effect. The safest 
and most expeditious way of doing it, I thought, 
would be to place myself at once in communication 
with some prominent and well-instructed philanthro- 
pist. Accordingly, I started forthwith for Philadel- 
phia, to consult the beautiful and fascinating young 
lady, who, in my previous visit, had so warmly and 
energetically defended the eating of the forbidden 
fruit at the suggestion of that first of philanthro- 
pists, as a brave, heroic, and disinterested act. She, 
of all my acquaintances and friends, was unques- 
tionably the one best fitted to complete my initia- 
tion into the mysteries of philanthropy, and to inspire 
and direct me in my efforts at world-reform. 

This lady, whom, out of respect to the great Mon- 
tanus, who claimed to be the Paraclete or Comforter, 
and professed to have the power of working mira- 
cles very much of the character of those wrought by 
our modern mesmerizers and spiritualists, I must be 
permitted to call Priscilla, had some years before 
touched my fancy, and if the truth must be con- 
fessed, had made more than an ordinary impression 



72 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

on my heart. She had often visited me in my wak- 
ing dreams, as a lovely, though flitting vision. She 
was at my last visit at least twenty-five years old, 
but as fresh and as blooming as at seventeen, when 
first I had the pleasure of meeting her. She was a 
sweet lady, with a lovely and graceful figure, ex- 
quisitely moulded, regular and (expressive features, 
and as learned, as brilliant, as fascinating, and as 
enthusiastic as the celebrated Hypatia of Alexan- 
dria, who stirred up the zeal of the good monks 
of Nitria, gave so much trouble to Saint Cyrill, 
and spread such a halo around expiring paganism. 
She had been sent by the Abolition Society as a 
delegate to the great Anti-Slavery World's Con- 
vention at London, and being denied a seat in 
that illustrious body, because a woman, she had 
turned her attention to the question of woman's 
rights, and, after travelling a few months on the 
continent, had returned home well instructed in 
Godwin's Political Justice, and a devout believer in 
Mary Wolstonecroft. She was liberal in her views, 
and very far from being a " one-idea " woman. Her 
mind was large and comprehensive, and her heart 
was capacious and loving enough to embrace and 
warm all classes of reformers, white, red, black, re- 
ligious, moral, political, social, and domestic. 

The morning after my arrival in the City of Broth- 
erly Love, I called on Priscilla at her residence in 
Arch Street, as I supposed with her mother. I found 
her surrounded by some ten or a dozen reformers, 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 73 

variously dressed ; some in petticoats, some in pan- 
taloons ; some with and some without beards ; the 
majority appearing to be of what grammarians call 
the epicene gender. She greeted me kindly, and re- 
quested me to be seated ; she would be disengaged 
in a few moments. I took a seat, and amused my- 
self as well as I could in studying the interesting 
group before me, and considering the sort of mate- 
rials that go to the making up of a world-reformer, 
and the charming associates I was likely to have in 
my new career. Having listened to their several re- 
ports, heard their suggestions, and given them her 
directions, Priscilla soon dismissed them with a sweet 
smile, and a graceful salute with her hand, that would 
have done credit to the grace and dignity of an 
empress. She then seated herself near me, and 
welcomed me most cordially and affectionately to 
Philadelphia. My visit was an unexpected pleasure, 
but all the more welcome. " But," she exclaimed, 
looking me more closely in the face, and struck with 
my changed and careworn expression, " what in the 
world, my friend, has happened to you ? " 

I was about to reply, when I observed that we 
I were not alone. An exceedingly meek and submis- 
sive-looking man, if man he could be called, had 
just entered the room, and seemed to be hesitating 
whether to advance or retreat. I looked inquiringly 
at Priscilla. 

" O, it is only my husband," she replied. Then 
turning, with her sweet face to him, with an inde- 
7 



74 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

finable charm in her soft musical tones, said, " You 
may leave us, dear James. This gentleman and I 
would be alone." 

He quietly retreated through the door he had en- 
tered, gently closed it, and went away without speak- 
ing a word, or betraying the least sign of discontent. 

" But, my dear madam," said I, "this takes me by 
surprise. I was not aware that you had a husband." 

" Possibly not ; yet I have been married these five 
years." 

" What ! you were married when I was in the city 
last year and had the pleasure of meeting you, and 
having that most pleasant and instructive conversa- 
tion with you ? " 

" Most assuredly." 

" This alters my plan. I had made up my mind, — " 

" Not to marry me yourself ? " 

" Pardon me, my dear madam, but I own that I 
had dreamed of something of the sort." 

" You might have done worse. I could have made 
you a good wife, but you would never have made 
me a good husband." 

" Why not ? I am not precisely a man to be 
slightly rejected." 

" That may be ; and had you proposed in season, 
I might not have rejected you. I am glad, however, 
that you did not, for 1 might have loved you, and 
you alone, and then I should never have become a 
philanthropist, and devoted all my sympathies and 
energies to the emancipation of my sex, and to the 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 75 

development and progress of my race. You would 
have engrossed all my thoughts and affections, and 
have been my tyrant." 

" But if I had loved you in return, and laid my 
own heart at your feet ?" 

" That would have made the matter worse. In 
loving me you would only have loved yourself, and 
sought only your own pleasure. Men usually love 
only to sacrifice her they love to themselves ; while 
woman, when she loves, is ready to sacrifice herself 
to her beloved. Man's love is selfish ; woman's is 
disinterested." 

" Women are disinterested creatures, and never 
exact any return for their love ! " 

" They are more disinterested than you believe. 
There is nothing that a true woman will not do for 
him she loves. She will abandon herself without 
reserve to his wishes, go through fire and water, nay, 
hell itself, for him, and take delight in damning her 
own soul, to please him." 

" That is because her love is an instinct, a blind 
passion, a sort of madness or frenzy, not a sober, 
rational affection." 

" Perhaps so ; but it is rather because her love is 
love. Unhappily, woman feels, she does not reason, 
or if she reasons, it is only in the interest of her feel- 
ing. Reason is cold, calculating ; love is warm and 
self-sacrificing. It is heedless of consequences." 

"And therefore is the better for having reason or 
prudence for a companion." 

" It is clear that you have never loved." 



76 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" Perhaps not ; but at any rate I think I could 
have loved you very much in your own fashion." 

" That is not improbable, at least, as far as it is in 
your calculating nature ; for I have been thought to 
have my attractions, and it would not be difficult to 
make any man my slave — unless I loved him. Yet 
you would always have loved me as a master, and 
have always held me in subjection. There are na- 
tures born to command. You would never have 
loved me as my dear James loves me, and never 
have been the meek, submissive, quiet, dear good 
man that he is. His love is not tyrannical, and it 
imposes no burden on me. He interferes with none 
of my plans, restrains none of my movements, and 
is satisfied with feeling that he is my husband and 
belongs to me, without once presuming to think of 
me as his wife and as belonging to him." 

" That is charming, and must, no doubt, entirely 
satisfy your heart." 

" That is my own affair. But I will tell you,that 
it does not, and that it does." 

" But that is a riddle ; pray rede it." 

" It does not satisfy the deep want of the heart to 
love, for no woman can love, with all her heart, a 
man she can make her slave, or who does not main- 
tain himself as her master. But as I would not be- 
come any one's slave, as I would not that any man 
should engross all my affections, and compel me to 
live all my life in love's delirium, it satisfies, and 
more than satisfies me. It leaves me free to be a 
philanthropist, and does not compel me to give up to 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 77 

one what was meant for mankind. If my husband 
engrossed all my affections I should be happy and 
contented at home, and should never seek relief in 
going abroad." 

"And should it not be so ?" 

" Consult the parsons and old-fashioned moralists, 
and they will tell you that it should. But I am a 
philanthropist. My James loves me sincerely, warm- 
ly, disinterestedly, consults my wishes, does whatever 
I require of him, has full confidence in me, is proud 
of me, and never doubts that whatever I do is per- 
fect. That is enough." 

" But do you return his love with a disinterested- 
ness and generosity equal to his own ? " 

" Why should I ? It is enough for him that I 
permit him to love me, and to call himself my hus- 
band. For myself, I remain free to be a philanthro- 
pist. I cannot give my heart to any individual. I 
reserve its deepest and holiest affections for man- 
kind." 

" But mankind, without individuals, is an abstrac- 
tion, a nullity ; and to love the race, without loving- 
individuals, is worse than loving a statue or a 
shadow." 

"Ah ! my dear friend, I see that you have not 
studied the profound philosophy of Plato, and are 
still a Nominalist, and therefore an egotist. You 
are still a psychologist, stuck fast in the slough of 
individualism." 

" It may be so, my dear Priscilla, but I am willing 

7* 



78 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

and even anxious to be liberated and set right. I 
have resolved, let come what will, to be a philan- 
thropist, and to become a world-reformer ; and it is 
to solicit your instructions and assistance to this end 
that I have visited your city, and sought my inter- 
view with you this morning." 

She shook her head and looked doubtingly. 

" Do not doubt it," I said, " I am serious, never more 
serious in my life. I am on the verge of important 
discoveries, and perhaps well-nigh within reach of a 
more than human power. But it is necessary that 
I at first become a philanthropist, unite myself with 
the movement party of the age, and take a decided 
and an active part in the great philanthropic reforms 
now so widely agitated, and live henceforth for man- 
kind, and not for myself alone." 

" Is this true ? " 

" Most assuredly ; as true as that I am here pre- 
sent." 

Slowly conviction seemed to fasten on her mind 
as she saw my serious and earnest manner, and in- 
deed my agitation, as 1 rose from my chair and stood 
before her. A brilliant joy suddenly sparkled from 
her large, liquid, deep blue eye, and radiated over her 
whole face. Springing from her seat, and seizing 
me by both my hands, " This is too much," she ex- 
claimed. " This I had wished, had prayed for, but 
had not dared hope." Her eyes filled with sweet 
tears, and, as if overcome with her emotions, she 
sunk into my arms, and rested her head upon my 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 79 

shoulder. I pressed her to my breast. But she in- 
stantly recovered herself, and we both resumed our 
seats. After a few moments' silence, Priscilla, with 
an animated and contented look, exclaimed : — 

" Now, my dear, dearest friend, I have hope. The 
good work will now go bravely on. Pure, noble, 
and strong-minded women to cooperate with me, I 
have found, but a man, a full-grown man, with a 
clear head, and a well-balanced mind, heretofore 
found I not. The men who have been ready to 
embark with me, are dwarfs, pigmies, simpletons, 
needy adventurers, cheats, knaves, or crack-brained 
enthusiasts, with but one idea in their heads, and 
that only half an idea. Drill them as I may, I can 
make nothing of them." 

" But, 5 ' said I, maliciously, " is not your dear James 
a philanthropist and reformer?" 

" My dear James is my husband," she said, with 
dignity and spirit. " But you are slow to compre- 
hend these things. The great and glorious work of 
regenerating man and society, cannot be carried on 
either by man alone or by woman alone. The two 
must be united and cooperate, or there can be no 
spiritual, as there can be no natural, offspring. But 
in regeneration, in the palingenesia, it is not at all 
necessary that they be husband and wife after the 
flesh. Married and made one in spirit they must 
be, but not married and made one flesh. Man and 
woman are each other's half, and they must be 
brought together to make a complete, active, and 



80 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

productive whole. But the relation of husband and 
wife is a purely domestic relation, and looks solely 
to a domestic end. If each finds the complementary 
half in the other, both are satisfied, contented, and 
neither has any wish or motive to look beyond the 
circle of the purely domestic affections." 

" That is, they who find their bliss at home have 
no need and no temptation to go a-roaming." 

" Precisely." 

" Then it is unhappiness, discontent, uneasiness, 
want, at home, that makes men and women turn 
philanthropists, and take to w r orld-reform ? " 

" Yes ; and herein you learn the deep philosophy of 
life, and the significance of that Religion of Sorrow, 
of which Carlyle speaks so touchingly, and which 
the world has professed for two thousand years, but 
which it has never understood. Hear my favorite 
poet : — 

1 The Fiend that man harries 

Is love of the Best ; 
Yawns the pit of the Dragon 

Lit by ra^ys from the Blest ; 
The Lethe of nature 

Can't trance him again, 
Whose soul sees the Perfect, 

Which his eyes seek in vain. 

' Profounder, profounder 

Man's spirit must dive ; 
To his aye-rolling orbit 

No goal will arrive ; 
The heavens that now draw him, 

With sweetness untold, 
Once found, — for new heavens 

He spurncth the old 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 81 

' Pride ruined the angels, 

Their shame then restores ; 
And the joy that is sweetest 

Lurks in the stings of remorse. 
Have I a lover 

Who is noble and free ? 
I would he were nobler 

Than to love me. 

4 Eterne alternation, 

Now follows, now flies, 
Under pain, pleasure, 

Under pleasure, pain lies. 
Love works at the centre, 

Heart-heaving alway, 
Forth speed the strong pulses 

To the borders of day.' 

" The 'love of the Best' is our innate and death- 
less desire of happiness, our being's end and aim. 
Happiness is ever the coy maiden, that still woos us 
onward, and flies ever as pursued, 

' Man never is, but always to be blest.' 

In this deep ever-reeurring want of the soul for hap- 
piness, the source of all our pain and sorrow, is the 
spring and motive of all our activity, and in activity 
is all our life and joy. Hence, i under pain pleasure, 
under pleasure pain lies.' All our life and joy have 
their root in pain and sorrow, in this eternal craving 
of the soul to be what we are not, and to have what 
we have not. The pain and sorrow spur us on, and 
lead us to acquire and possess. But no possession 
satisfies us. The most coveted is no sooner obtained 
than it is loathed and cast away. 



82 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

' The heavens that now draw him, 

With sweetness untold, 
Once found, — for new heavens 

He spurneth the old.' 

" Love dies in the wooing. The acquiring is more 
than the possessing. All possessing leaves the heart 
empty, — an aching void within, which nothing fills 
or can fill. This aching void will not let us rest, 
will not leave us in repose, which is only another 
name for inaction, death, but compels us to exert our- 
selves, to struggle with all our strength and energy 
, to make new acquisitions. In this struggle, in these 
efforts, humanity is developed, and the progress of 
the race carried on." 

" Carried on, my dear Priscilla, towards what ? 
Sings not your poet, 

' Profounder, profounder 

Man's spirit must dive, 
— To his aye-rolling orbit 

No goal will arrive ? ' " 

" That is the glorious secret, my dear friend. The 
end of man is not the possession, but the pursuit, of 
happiness, or rather eternal progress and growth. 
By the fact that the pain, the want, the aching void, 
remains eternally, there is and must be eternal ac- 
tivity, therefore eternal development and progress of 
humanity." 

" But as that development and progress leave us 
as far as ever from happiness, or fixed and durable 
good, I see not in what consists their value." 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 83 

" Their value is obvious. Good is relative to the 
end of a being, and consists in going to the end for 
which it exists. Progress being our end, of course 
our good must consist in making progress. This 
progress is the progress of the race, and is effected 
by the activity of individuals, and to it all the ac- 
tivity of individuals, whether what is called vicious 
or virtuous, alike contributes." 

" If all our activity, our vices, and crimes, as well 
as our virtues, contribute to this progress, or to the 
realization of our destiny, I do not see any great 
call for us to be world reformers. Moreover, our 
destiny seems to be any thing but a cheering one. 
Your poet-philosophy is apparently very sad. If we 
are destined to chase forever a happiness that flies 
us, a good that recedes as we advance, all exertion 
seems to me as idle, as useless as that of the child 
striving to grasp the rainbow." 

" So it may seem to you, for you are, as yet, not a 
philanthropist. You are still affected by your ego- 
tism, and unable to appreciate any activity that does 
not bring something solid and durable to the indi- 
vidual. Here is the rock on which all old-fashioned 
morality splits. Individuals are nothing in them- 
selves ; they are real, substantial, only in humanity. 
The race is every thing. Individuals die, the race 
survives. Men and women have no substantiality 
of their own. They are merely the bubbles that rise 
on the surface of the broad ocean of humanity, burst, 
disappear, and become as if they had not been. 



84 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Foolish bubbles, ye forget your own nothingness, 
and would arrogate to yourselves all the rights and 
prerogatives, glory and happiness of humanity. The 
race is not for individuals ; individuals are for the 
race. They are simply the sensations, sentiments, 
and cognitions of the race, in which it manifests its 
own inherent virtuality, and through which it is 
developed and carried forward in its endless career 
through the ages, — through which it grows and 
realizes its own eternal and glorious destiny. The 
progress you are to seek is not the progress of indi- 
viduals, for individuals have, properly speaking, no 
progress ; but the progress of the race, which is and 
can be effected only by the activity of individual men 
and women." 

" Still, I do not comprehend the work there is for 
world-reformers." 

" Why, you are stupid, Doctor. All activity, 
whether called vicious or criminal, is good, for it 
aids progress. But nothing is vicious, criminal, or 
, sinful, except that which represses the free activity 
of individuals, and thus hinders the development 
and growth of the race. It was, therefore, not a 
friend, but an enemy, that imposed upon our first 
parents the prohibition to eat the fruit of the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil. It was a friend, 
not an enemy, that inspired Eve with the thought 
and the courage to disregard that prohibition, to 
reach forth her hand and pluck the fruit, and having 
eaten thereof, to give it also unto her husband. The 
fable was invented by priests and governors as a 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 85 

means of imposing their system of restraints, of 
establishing their restrictive policy, to which they 
have adhered, as old fogie politicians adhere to pro- 
tection. They have always had a horror of free 
trade, as incompatible with their monopoly, and 
have made it their study to repress our native ac- 
tivity, to keep us cabined, cribbed, and confined, 
within the narrow enclosure of their hidebound sys- 
tems, of their immoral, contracted, galling, and 
senseless conventionalism. They will not allow 
nature, humanity, fair play. They brand, as from 
the enemy of souls, all free activity. The heart 
must move according to their rules, and love or hate 
as they bid ; the mind must run only in the grooves 
which they have hollowed out, and never dare search 
beneath their solemn shams, or send sharp and pierc- 
ing glances into the artificial w T orld they have built up 
around us. We must repress our purest and noblest 
instincts, and crucify our sweetest and holiest affec- 
tions. Everywhere restraint, repression, tyranny. 
The church tyrannizes over the state ; the state 
tyrannizes over man and society ; man and society 
tyrannize over woman, making her a puppet, a toy, 
or a drudge. Here, my dear, dear friend, behold 
your work, and that of your fellow-reformers. Go 
forth and break down this vast system of tyranny. 
Emancipate the state from the church, man and 
society from the state, and woman from man and 
society." 

" But some government, some restraint is neces- 



86 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

sary to keep our appetites, passions, and lusts within 
bounds, and to maintain peace and order in the com- 
munity." 

"Alas ! my friend, how hard it is for you to cease 
to be an egotist, and to learn to be a philanthropist. 
Know, that philanthropy seeks no individual, no ex- 
clusive good, and does not consist in loving and 
seeking the welfare of our fellow men and women. 
It is the love of man, not men, and seeks the welfare 
of the race, not of individuals. The welfare of the 
race consists in progress, which is effected only by 
free activity. All free activity is good, virtuous, 
right. Virtue is in action, not in non-action, which 
is death, the wages of sin. The only good is free 
activity, and every conceivable good is included in 
that one word, liberty." 

" But liberty, if not sustained and regulated by 
authority, may degenerate into license." 

" Still, mon pauvre ami, in bondage to the law, 
and ignorant of the glorious liberty of the children 
of God. Away with your legal cant. By the deeds 
of the law no flesh ever was or ever will be justified. 
Long had the world groaned in this ignoble bondage, 
but know you not that it was to set them free that the 
Liberator came ? O, liberty ! sweet, sacred liberty ! 
how I love thee! My heart and soul pant for thee 
as the thirsty hind pants for brooks of water. My 
flesh cries out for thee. Thou art my God, and to 
thee I consecrate my life, my love, and on thy altar 
I offer myself a living holocaust." 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 87 

u Is there really no difference between liberty and 
license ?" 

" Be not the dupe of words. You seek to be a 
philanthropist. Philanthropy, I tell you again and 
again, is the love pf man, mankind, humanity. Who 
that loves humanity would repress any thing human ? 
If man is the supreme object of your love, how can 
you distrust any human tendency, or fear any human 
activity ? " 

" Suppose, my dear Priscilla, who speak to me as 
one inspired, I should forget myself so far as not to 
remember James,- and proceed to make love to his 
wife ? " 

" She would say you have a very short memory, 
and no very great sagacity. She would most likely 
know how to oppose her activity to yours." 

"And thus surrender her doctrine; for in such case 
her activity would overcome mine, or mine would 
overcome and restrain hers." 

" Not necessarily. There would be a struggle of 
opposing forces, a free activity on both sides, and 
whatever the result, a development and progress of 
humanity. But all this is folly. There can be no 
love passages between us. We understand each 
other on such matters. United, married, if you will, 
in spirit, we are, or if not, must be, but we have no 
leisure or inclination for dalliance, which would be 
foreign to our mission. Our thoughts, I trust, yours 
as well as mine, rise higher, and move in a serener 
atmosphere. But be not disheartened. Our rela- 
tion is, and must be, purely spiritual." 



88 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" I did but ask the question, my dear Priscilla, in 
order to see if you were prepared to carry out your 
doctrine to its legitimate conclusion." 

" That was foolish. No true woman ever stops 
half way in her principles, or shrinks from carrying 
them out, by a cold and cowardly calculation of 
consequences. She leaves that to masculine virtue. 
When once women adopt a principle, they are pre- 
pared to follow it to its last results, without count- 
ing the sacrifice. You men cannot do this. You 
are always hesitating, deliberating, craving the end, 
but afraid to grasp it, compromising with your rea- 
son and your conscience. Recollect Macbeth, and 
Lady Macbeth, as painted by Shakspeare, who knew 
man's heart and woman's too. Here is the reason 
why you always stop half way in your reforms, or 
never do more than patch a piece of new cloth on 
to an old garment, which only makes the rent worse. 
Hence yotir need of woman's straightforward logic, 
her disinterestedness, her singleness of heart, her 
constancy of purpose, and her invincible courage." 

" But perhaps, my dear lady, women are not sel- 
dom rash, and what you commend in them is the 
effect of narrowness of view, and not of that clear 
and enlarged comprehensiveness, that " many sided- 
ness," to use a Germanism, which is desirable in 
a true and trustworthy reformer. Perhaps she lacks 
prudence, and may not use sufficient caution in 
adopting her principles, and thus may adopt false 
principles, and find ruin where she imagines she is 
to find only safety." 



A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY. 89 

" It is safer to trust her instincts than man's rea- 
son. Yet I deny not the danger to which you allude, 
and therefore it is that it is never safe to trust her to 
act alone. Hence the necessity, in all our move- 
ments for reform, of the strict union of man and 
woman. She needs him as a drag on her too great 
rapidity of motion, and to temper her zeal with his 
prudence, and he needs her to inspire him with 
courage, energy, and love. Either is only a half 
without the other, and both must be united, as I 
have already told you, to form a complete and pro- 
ductive whole." 

" I think I now understand what is meant by 
philanthropy. I have the idea, but as a pure idea it 
amounts to nothing. We must realize it, or reduce 
it to practice. Our great work is to remodel the 
world according to this idea, But how is this to be 
done?" 

" That is undoubtedly the most difficult question, 
although our difficulties will not end even there. 
When we have ascertained what we are to do, and 
how it is to be done, we have still the difficult task 
to do it. But courage, mon ami. Once started, re- 
forms are carried forward by their own momentum, 
and, like popular rumor, grow as they go onward. 
For myself, I am not exclusive, and have no special 
plan of my own. I listen to all sorts of plans, and 
countenance all sorts of reforms. None of them 
commend themselves in all respects to my under- 
standing any more than to my taste. But all seem 
8 



90 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

to me to be inspired by the same spirit, and in dif- 
ferent ways to work to one and the same end. There 
is a diversity of gifts. All see not truth under the 
same aspect; none, perhaps, see it under all aspects 
at once, and each sees it under some special aspect. 
We must tolerate them all ; for to attempt to bring 
them all into order, and to compel them all to think 
alike, and to work after one and the same manner, 
or in one and the same method, is absurd, and if 
successful, would only establish in another, and per- 
haps in an aggravated form, the very system of 
tyranny and repression we are laboring to demolish. 
You know something already of our reformers, and 
the most prominent are now in the city, holding 
conventions. We have representatives from all the 
Northern and Middle States, and several English and 
Continental philanthropists. Some of them, I can- 
not say how many, will meet at my house this even- 
ing, and you must meet with them. You will find 
their conversation interesting and instructive, and 
perhaps you will become acquainted with some who 
will give you valuable hints, although, to confess the 
truth, I have no very high opinion of any of them, 
taken individually. Be sure and not fail me ; come 
early, at seven o'clock." 

So saying, she rose, gave me her hand, au revoir, 
and I departed to my lodgings, charmed with the 
sweetness and fascinated by the manner of Priscilla, 
rather than enlightened by her philosophy or con- 
vinced by her reasons. 



91 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 

When I returned in the evening, I found Priscilla 
in high spirits, more radiant and fascinating than 
ever. Her company were slowly assembling in her 
luxuriously, and even elegantly furnished rooms. 
Among the earlier arrivals were my friend, Mr. 
Winslow, and strange enough, my Puritan acquaint- 
ance, Mr. Cotton, who had recently become a resi- 
dent of Philadelphia, and pastor of a Presbyterian 
church in that city. Others were announced, some 
whom I knew, but more whom I knew not. The 
majority were from the middle and upper classes, 
although all classes of society had their male or 
female representatives. The principle on which they 
came together was universal philanthropy, and who- 
ever was a philanthropist, and had an idea, or the 
smallest fraction of an idea, had the entree^ unless 
he had African blood in his veins. All were of 
course abolitionists, or friends of the blacks, and 
therefore excluded studiously the negroes from their 
social gatherings. Generally speaking, all professed 
universal democracy, and hence were very exclusive 
in their feelings, and aristocratic in their tone and 
bearing; that is, so far as aristocracy consists in a 



92 



THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 



consciousness, not of one's own worth, but of the 
worthlessness of his brother. The company was too 
large to have only one centre, and gradually sepa- 
rated into groups according to their special tastes 
and tendencies. In the centre of each group was 
some male or female reformer, distinguished from 
the rest by superior knowledge, volubility, or impu- 
dence, and regarded as the oracle of his or her own 
set, for however loud people's profession of demo- 
cratic equality, nature will show itself, and every set 
of them will have its chief, honored as my Lord or 
my Lady. 

Mr, Winslow had been dismissed from; his parish, 
and having no other means of getting his living, he 
had followed the example of Mr. Sowerby, and de- 
voted himself to lecturing and experimenting on 
mesmerism. He was urging upon Priscilla # the im- 
portance of forming mesmeric circles in all the cities, 
towns, and villages, of the Union. The first thing 
to be done was to organize a philanthropic Ladies' 
Aid Society, for the purpose of supporting a mes- 
meric travelling agent or missionary, whose business 
should be to form these circles or associations, in- 
struct some member of each in the art of mesmer- 
izing, and serve as their common centre and bond of 
union. If no one more worthy were found he would 
himself consent to accept, for a moderate salary, 
such agency, or to be such missionary. These cir- 
cles formed, and affiliated visibly and invisibly to 
each other, would become a powerful body, and 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 93 

exert a moral influence which both the church and 
the state, politicians and clergymen, would be oblig- 
ed to respect. In this way he was sure all the ele- 
mentary forces of nature herself could be brought to 
bear on the great and glorious work of world-reform. 
Mr. Edgerton, a New England Transcendentalist, 
a thin, spare man, with a large nose, and a cast of 
Yankee shrewdness in his not unhandsome face, 
was not favorable to this plan. " I dislike," he 
said, "associations. They absorb the individual, and 
establish social despotism. All set plans of world- 
reform are bad. Every one must have a theory, a 
plan, a Morrison's pill. No one trusts to nature. 
None are satisfied with wild flowers or native forests. 
All seek an artificial garden. They will not hear the 
robin sing unless it is shut up in a cage. The rich 
undress of nature is an offence, and she must be 
decked out in the latest fashion of Paris or London, 
and copy the grimaces of a French dancing-master, 
or lisp like an Andalusian beauty, before they will 
open their hearts to her magic power. Say to all 
this, Get behind me, Satan. Dare assert yourselves ; 
plant yourselves on your imperishable instincts ; 
sing your own song of joy, your own wail of grief; 
speak your own word ; tell what your own soul 
seeth, and leave the effect to take care of itself. 
Eschew the crowd, eschew self-consciousness, form 
no plan, propose no end, seek no moral, but speak out 
from your own heart; build as builds the bee her cell, 
sing as sings the bird, the grasshopper, or the cricket." 






94 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" So," said Mr. Merton, a young man, with a fine 
classic head and face, who seemed to have been 
drawn hither by mere curiosity, " so you think the 
nearer men approach to birds and insects the better 
it will be for the world." 

" I never dispute," replied Mr. Edgerton. " I utter 
the word given me to utter, and leave it as the 
ostrich leaveth her eggs. Men should be seers, not 
philosophers ; prophets, not reasoners. I never offer 
proof of what I say. I could not prove it, if asked. 
If it is true, genuine, the fit word, opportunely 
spoken, it will prove itself. If it approves not itself 
to you, it is not for you. You are not prepared to 
receive it. It is not true for you. Be it so. It is 
true for me, and for those like me. Fash not your- 
self about it, but leave us to enjoy it in peace." 

" But are we to understand," replied Mr. Merton, 
" that truth varies as vary individual minds ? " 

" Sir, you will excuse me. I am no logician, and 
eschew dialectics. Truth is one, it is the Whole, the 
All, the universal Being. It is a reality in, under, 
and over all, manifesting itself under an infinite 
variety of aspects. Every one beholds it under 
some one of its aspects, no one beholds it under all. 
Each mind in that it is real, is itself, is a manifesta- 
tion of it, but no one is it in its integrity and univer- 
sality, any more than the bubble on its surface is the 
whole ocean. Under each particular bubble lies, how- 
ever, the whole ocean, and if it will speak not from its 
diversity, its bubbleosity, in which sense it is only an 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 95 

apparition, an appearance, a show, an unreality, but 
from what is real in it, from its real substantial self, it 
may truly call itself the whole ocean. So, under each 
individual mind lies all truth, all reality, all being; 
and hence, in so far as they are real, all minds are one 
and the same. Men are weak, are puny, differ from 
one another because they seek to live in their diver- 
sity, and to find their truth, their reality, in their in- 
dividuality. Let them eschew their individuality, 
which is to their reality, their real self, only what 
the bubbleosity of the bubble is to the ocean, and 
fall back on their identity, on the universal truth 
which underlies them. If they will be men, real 
men, not make-believes, strong men, thinking men, 
let them be themselves, sink back into their under- 
lying reality, on the One Man, and suffer the uni- 
versal Over-Soul to flow into them, and speak 
through them without let or impediment." 

" We must," said another Transcendentalist, some- 
times called the American Orpheus, " return to the 
simplicity of childhood. ' Except ye be converted 
and become as a little child, ye shall in no wise 
enter into the kingdom of heaven.' The man who 
thinks, Rousseau has well said, is already a depraved 
animal. All learning is a forgetting ; science and 
wisdom are gathered from babes and sucklings. 
We are not prepared as yet to talk of world-reform. 
We must be before we can do ; be men before we 
can do men's work. All being is in doing ; rather 
all doing is in being. Ideas are the essences, the 



96 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

realities of things. Seek ideas. They will take to 
themselves hands, build them a temple, and'instau- 
rate their worship. Seek not ideas from books; they 
are lies. Seek them not of the learned and grey- 
haired ; they have lost them. Be docile and child- 
like ; seat yourself by the cradle, at the feet of awful 
childhood, and look into babies' eyes." 

" What we want to cure the evils of society," 
broke in Mr. Kerrison, — a tinker, I believe, — a small 
man in a snuff-colored frock coat, with sharp grey 
eyes, lank cheeks, a short nose, a pointed chin, and 
squeaking voice, " is a Children's Protection Society ; 
a society that shall protect children from the indeli- 
cacy, the cruelty, and inhumanity of their brutal 
parents. There is nothing more shocking to our 
finer sensibilities, or more outrageous to true philan- 
thropy, than to see a full-grown woman, tall and 
stout, with a red face, fiery eyes, and a harsh voice, — 
or a full-grown man, yet taller and stouter, stern and 
awful in his look, terrible in his anger tones, — seize 
a poor helpless little boy or girl, — yes, or girl, — 
not more than three or four years old it may be, 
and taking him or her across the knee, strike on 
the very seat of her or him, blow after blow, till the 
poor little thing screams with pain and agony. It 
is indelicate, cruel, barbarous. How would the 
father or mother like to be treated in the same way? 
It blunts the delicate sensibility of the child, sours 
his temper, hardens his heart, develops and strength- 
ens all his harsh and angry feelings, and prepares 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 97 

him to be, when he grows up, as bad as was his 
father or his mother." 

" Our friend," added Mr. Silliman, an amiable 
young minister, a Unitarian, I believe, or, as he said, 
a Preacher of the religion of Humanity, " has, I 
think, gone to the root of the matter. The evils of 
individuals and of society have their origin in the 
harsh, cruel, unfeeling, and indelicate manner in 
which parents bring up their children. Children 
should never be restrained, should never be crossed ; 
they should always be caressed by the soft, delicate 
hand of love, be surrounded by sweet and smiling 
faces, by lovely and attractive images, live in com- 
munion with fresh and fragrant nature, and find life 
all one fairy day." 

" Young America," interposed Mr. Merton, "will 
thank you both, I have no doubt. The abolition of 
corporal chastisement will meet the decided ap- 
proval of our little folks, and perhaps of our patriots. 
It is questionable whether this flogging of children 
is not an infringement upon equal rights. I do not 
see what the father in my town, universal democrat 
as he was, had to reply to the question put to him 
the other day by Young America. A little rascal, 
some ten or twelve years old, had done some mis- 
chief, for which his father flogged him. Young 
America bore it with heroic fortitude, as if the 
honor of his country and of the race was at stake 
in his person, and when it was over, with the calm 
and dignified air of a man and a freeman, folded his 



98 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

arms across his breast, looked up to his father, and 
asked, — ' Father, is not this a free country?' 'Yes.' 
' By what right, then, do you flog me ? ' " 

" Parents," said a cross-grained old maid, " are 
wholly incapable of bringing up their children. 
They have no judgment, no steadiness ; at one mo- 
ment whipping them without rhyme or reason, and 
the next soothing them with candy, and smothering 
them with caresses. They impart to them their 
own tempers, passions, weaknesses, and prejudices. 
There should be established infant schools at the 
public expense, where all the children, as soon as 
twelve months old, should be placed, and brought 
up by proper persons trained and prepared in normal 
schools for that purpose." 

" You will have to go farther back than that, my 
good woman," said Mr. Long, an English gentle- 
man just arrived in the country and announced as 
the Prophet of the Newness. " Children are born 
with an inclination to evil, and are hardly born be- 
fore they manifest vicious tempers and a fondness 
for doing precisely what they ought not to do. If 
suffered to have their own way, they would never 
live to grow up. They must, as they are now born, 
be restrained and even whipped, for their own good. 
Here the sins of the parents are visited upon the 
children. We must begin with the parents. We 
live in a depraved state, and children inherit vitiated 
moral and physical constitutions from their fathers 
and mothers. We must look to this fact, and sternly 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 99 

prohibit all persons of obviously vitiated moral or 
physical constitutions from begetting or bearing 
children. After that we must turn our attention to 
improving the breed, as our English farmers have 
done in the case of their horses, oxen, cows, sheep, 
swine, dogs, and hens." 

" That may be rather difficult to manage in a free 
country," said Dr. Muzzleton, a professor of Surgery 
in a Western medical college, " and can hardly be 
tried, except by the master with his negroes on our 
Southern plantations. The hopes of philanthropists 
must rest on something more practical, and less diffi- 
cult to be accomplished. The philanthropist's de- 
pendence is on dietetic reform. The vitiated moral 
and physical constitution of parents, and which they 
impart to their children, comes unquestionably from 
the use of animal food. It is necessary, therefore, 
to abolish the use of animal food, and have people 
feed only on a vegetable diet. Nature shows this 
in the very construction of the human teeth, which 
are very different from those of the lion, the tiger, 
and other carniverous animals. Carniverous ani- 
mals have no grinders, and their teeth are fitted only 
for tearing. Man has incisors and molars, which 
1 shows that he was intended to cut and grind his 
food." 

" But which serve him very well, since he does 
not usually eat flesh raw, but cooks it," remarked 
Mr. Merton. " But the antediluvians eat no flesh. 
They lived on a vegetable diet, were vegetarians, 



100 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

and yet they became so corrupt that the Almighty 
sent a flood and destroyed them all, with the excep- 
tion of eight persons." 

"Where do you learn that?" asked Dr. Muzzle- 
ton. 

" From the Bible and tradition," replied Mr. Mer- 
ton. 

AH stared, and many broke out into a loud laugh, 
at the joke of citing the Bible and tradition as 
authority in an assembly of philanthropists and re- 
formers. Dr. Muzzleton looked round with great 
blandness, and said to Mr. Merton, " You see, my 
young friend, the majority is against you. I respect 
the Bible in matters pertaining to another world, 
but I am speaking now as a man of science, not as 
a theologian. I leave theology to the clergy," bow- 
ing on his right to Mr. Cotton, and on his left to Mr. 
Win slow. 

" I respect the Bible in theology no more than I 
do in science," said Miss Rose Winter, a strong- 
minded woman, and a decided reformer, of Jewish 
descent. " The first thing for all reformers to do is 
to destroy the authority of the Bible and emanci- 
pate the Christian world from its morality. It is the 
great supporter of all abuses, and it and the church 
are almost our only obstacles to overcome. It sanc- 
tions the use of wine and animal food, slavery and 
the restitution of the fugitive slave, war and capital 
punishment. It asserts the divine right of govern- 
ment, and forbids resistance to power. It is the 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 101 

fountain of superstition, and the grand bulwark of 
priestcraft. It calls woman the weaker vessel, for- 
bids her to speak in meeting, and commands her to 
be in subjection to her husband. We are fools and 
madmen to talk of our reforms as long as we regard 
the Bible as any thing more than a last year's al- 
manac. 9 ' 

" In that I think you are right, my dear lady," 
said Mr. Cotton, dryly. 

" I esteem the Bible a good book," said Mr. Wins- 
low. " It contains more genuine and sublime poetry 
than any other book I am acquainted with, not even 
excepting Homer. But I do not accept its plenary 
inspiration, and I feel bound to believe only the 
truths I find in it." 

" And these," remarked Mr. Merton, " I suppose 
are only what happens to accord with your own 
opinions for the time being." 

"The Bible," interposed Priscilla, "is a genuine 
book, and faithfully records the real experience of 
prophets and seers of old times, and is of no value 
to us save as interpreted by the facts of each one's 
own inner life. Much of it is local, temporary, 
colored by the nation and age that produced it, and 
is no longer of any significance for us ; but what 
there is in it universal, that is the genuine utterance 
of universal nature, and true for all persons, times, 
and places, should be accepted, as we accept every 
genuine word, by whomsoever uttered." 

Mr. Merton shrugged his shoulders and said 
9* 



102 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

nothing; Mr. Cotton looked black, was scandalized, 
and muttered, " Rank infidelity. 7 ' " And what else," 
said a very gentlemanly young man, who had been 
talking nonsense for an hour to a bevy of young 
ladies in a corner of the room, and apparently in- 
different to the great matters under discussion, 
" and what else did his reverence expect in a com- 
pany of reformers ? Yet we are not really infidels. 
We have only thrown off the mask, and ceased to 
be hypocrites. AYhatever man's profession, ever 
since it was said, ' It is not good for man to be 
alone,' and Eve was brought blushing to his bower, 
woman has been the real shrine at which he has 
worshipped. This is our ancestral religion, and true 
to the religion of my fathers, I make woman my 
Divinity, and lay my offering at Leila's feet." 

" Do not believe him," said a saucy young thing, 
with a sparkling eye and pouting lips. " He wor- 
ships only himself. Here I have been this half hour 
trying to convince him that there is something mys- 
tic in woman, and that science and religion, as now 
organized, are false and mischievous, because they 
are the product of man's genius alone. I have said 
all the flattering things I could to make him take 
up the cause of Woman's Rights, and he has only 
laughed at me." 

M You wrong me, fair and adorable Leila ; woman 
reigns supreme now, and we are slaves; what more 
can she ask ? " 

M She should be elevated to be the equal of man," 
said Leila. 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 103 

" Lowered, my Leila would say," replied the 
young gentleman. 

44 And placed in the possession of the same po- 
litical franchises, have the right to vote at all elec- 
tions, and be declared eligible to any and every 
office political, civil, or military," continued Leila, 
without heeding the interruption. 

" But that," said Mr. Merton, " would be hardly 
fair to us men, and would moreover be dangerous 
to republican liberty. Mademoiselle Leila would 
of course be a candidate for the Assembly. All the 
young men would vote for her, because they would 
secure her good graces, and all the old men would 
do the same, in order to prove that they are not old, 
and have not yet lost their sensibility to female 
loveliness and worth; she would be elected unani- 
mously. In the Assembly she would rise to pro- 
pose some measure, throw aside her veil, beam forth 
upon us with all her charms, and for the same rea- 
sons all would support her. She would reign as 
a despot, which, as a republican, I must protest 
against." 

44 She might have rivals ; all men do not see with 
the same eyes," sagely remarked a venerable spin- 
ster, with a dried and withered form and face, 
puckering up her mouth, and endeavoring to look 
killing." 

" That is well thought of," said Mr. Merton. 

44 Besides," added Mr. Winslow, " the votes of the 
women would be as numerous as those of the men, 



104 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

and might be thrown for a candidate of the other 
sex." 

" And you may trust to the women themselves to 
see that no one of their own sex has a monopoly of 
power," added, caustically, Mr. Cotton. 

" You are hard upon us women," pleaded Pris- 
cilla. " Women have their weaknesses as well as 
men theirs, but they can love and admire beauty in 
their own sex, as much as they do ugliness in men. 
I do not suppose that placing them on an equality 
in all respects with men will increase their power as 
women, but it will increase their power as reasonable 
human beings. I think woman would lose much of 
her peculiar power as woman over man, and this I 
should by no means regret. I would break down 
the tyranny of sex as I would that of caste or class. 
I would have men and women so trained, that they 
could meet, converse, or act together as simple hu- 
man beings, without ever recurring, even in thought, 
to the difference of sex." 

" That," said the young worshipper of woman, 

" would be cruel. It would be like spreading a pall 

over the sun, or extinguishing the lamp of life. Even 

the garden of Eden 

was a wild, 

And man the hermit sighed, till woman smil'd." 

" As long as I remember my mother or my sister," 
said Mr. Merton, " I would never meet a woman, 
however high or however humble, without taking 
note of the fact that she is a woman." 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 105 

" Things are best as God made them," added Mr. 
Cotton. " Men and women have each their peculiar 
character and sphere. Women would gain nothing 
by exchanging the petticoat for the breeches, or men 
by exchanging the breeches for the petticoat." 

" But I wish," said Leila, poutingly, " to be treated 
as a reasonable being, and that the young gentlemen 
who do me the honor to address me would treat me 
as if I had common sense. I do not want compli- 
ments paid to my hands and feet, my face, lips, 
nose, eyes, and eyebrows." 

" And yet," said I, " my sweet Leila, they are 
well worth complimenting." 

She smiled, and seemed not displeased. 

" I suspect," remarked Mr. Cotton, with his Puri- 
tan slyness, " that the young lady finds the affluence 
of such compliments more endurable than she would 
their absence." 

" I do not deal much in compliments," said Mr. 
Merton, "but I do not much fancy persons who are 
always wise, and never open their mouths without 
giving utterance to some grave maxim for the con- 
duct of life. There is a time to be silly as well as a 
time to be wise. Life is made up of little things, 
and he is a sad moralist who has no leniency for 
trifles. I love myself to look upon a pretty face, and 
find no great objection to those pleasant nothings 
which are the current coin of well-bred conversation 
between the sexes. Even a gallant speech, a hap- 
pily-turned compliment, when it brings no blush to 
the cheek of modesty, is quite endurable." 



106 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" I thought you were a parson, Mr. Merton," said 
Priseilla, " and am surprised to find you so tolerant 
of what it is said your cloth generally condemns." 

" The fair Priseilla may have mistaken my cloth. 
I am a man, and I hope a gentleman. I love soci- 
ety, and find an exquisite charm in the social inter- 
course of cultivated men and women. That charm 
would vanish were they to meet and converse, not 
as men and women, gentlemen and ladies, but as 
simple human beings. Could you carry out your 
doctrine, your sex would, I fear, be the first to suffer 
from it." 

" Perhaps they would," said Priseilla ; " but it is 
woman's lot to suffer, and she was born to redeem 
the race by her private sorrows. She will not shrink 
from the sacrifice. You need her at the polls, in the 
legislative halls, in the executive chair, on the judge's 
bench, as well as in the saloon, to give purity and 
elevation to your affections, disinterestedness and 
courage to your conduct." 

" Rather let her be present to infuse noble quali- 
ties into our hearts in childhood, and to cherish and 
invigorate them in our manhood," added Mr. Mer- 
ton. " Let her mission be by a sweet, quiet, and 
gentle influence to form us from our infancy for 
lofty and heroic deeds, and let it be ours to do 
them." 

" I do not like this discussion at all," broke in 
Thomas Jefferson Andrew" Jackson Hobbs, a tho- 
rough-going radical, with an unshaved and un- 
washen face, long, lank, uncombed hair, and a gray, 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 107 

patched frock coat, leather pantaloons, a red waist- 
coat, and a red bandanna handkerchief tied round 
his neck for a cravat. " The world can never be 
reformed by the instrumentality of government, 
whether in the hands of man or woman. The curse 
of the world is that it has been governed too much. 
That is the best government that governs least, and 
a better is that which governs none at all. We want 
no government, least of all a government made up 
of female politicians and intriguers. There never 
yet was a great crime or a great iniquity, but a 
woman had a hand in it. The devil, when he would 
ruin mankind, always begins by seducing woman, 
and making her his accomplice. We must get rid 
of all government, break dow r n church and state, 
sweep away religion and politics, and exterminate 
all priests and politicians, whether in pantaloons or 
petticoats, in broadcloth or homespun, and bring 
back that state of things which was in Judea, ' when 
there was no king in Israel, and every man did what 
was right in his own eyes.' " 

" Boldly said," remarked Signor Giovanni Urbini, 
a leader of young Italy, " but it is hardly wise. The 
people are not yet, especially in my country, pre- 
pared for it. They have so long been the slaves of 
power, and the tools of superstition, that they would 
be shocked at its bare announcement. They must 
have their Madonnas, their San Carlos, their San 
Felippos, and their capucin frati. But a thorough- 
going democratic revolution is no doubt needed, 



108 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

and such a revolution will necessarily result in a 
no less thorough and radical revolution in reli- 
gion ; but this last we had better leave to come of 
itself. You cannot work with purely negative ideas. 
You must have something positive, and that must 
be the positive idea of the age. Kings, princes, no- 
bles, priests, religions in our times are at a discount, 
and the secret, silent, but irresistible tendency is to 
bring up the people. Assert, then, boldly everywhere 
people-king, people-pontiff', people-god. Fling out 
to the breeze the virgin banner of the people. Go 
forth to war in the name of the people, in the in- 
spiration of the people, and always and every- 
where shout the people, THE PEOPLE. Break 
the fetters which now bind the people, emancipate 
them from their present masters, assert their su- 
premacy, and establish their power, which of course 
in the last analysis will be our power over them. 
They will then re-organize society, religion, and poli- 
tics, and every thing else, after the' best model, and 
in the way which will best meet our wishes." 

" I am decidedly opposed to my friend Urbini's 
doctrine," frankly asserted M. Beaubien, from the 
sunny south of France, " I want no king-people, and 
if I must be tyrannized over, I prefer it should be by 
one man rather than the many-headed and capri- 
cious multitude. The evils under which society 
groans is individualism, which now exerts itself in 
universal competition, so highly prized by your fool- 
ish and stupid political economists. These evils can 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. 109 

be removed by no political or religious revolution, 
neither by your Luthers nor your Robespierres. 
They can be removed only by the pacific organiza- 
tion of labor, and the arrangement of laborers in 
groups and series according to their special tastes 
and capacities, on the newly-discovered principle 
that ' attractions are proportional to destiny.' " 

" A better plan," suggested M. Icarie, also from la 
belle France, " is to abolish all private property, all 
private households, industry, and economy, and have 
the whole community supported, lodged, fed, clothed, 
feasted or nursed, and transported from place to place, 
from house to house, at the public expense." 

" Admirable," interposed Mr. Cotton, " but who 
will support the public, and whence will the public 
draw its funds ? " 

" Singular questions," replied M. Icarie. " The 
public will support itself, and draw the necessary 
funds from the public treasury, as a matter of 
course." 

" And where does the treasury get them ? " asked, 
with a sneer, M. Le Prohne, a native of the ancient 
Dauphiny, who towered head and shoulders above 
l all the rest "All your schemes are idle and absurd ; 
property is robbery ; abolish it, and all distinction be- 
tween thine and mine^ and establish a grand Peo- 
ple's Bank, and give each one an equal credit on its 
books." 

" And who," sarcastically remarked M. Icarie, "will 
take care of the Bank, and be responsible for its 
10 



110 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

managers, or see that the drafts of individuals are 
duly honored ? " 

" Why not," I asked in my enthusiasm, " make 
an equal division of property among all the mem- 
bers of the community ? " 

" That would do very well for a start," suggested 
Mr. Cotton, " but he was afraid that come Saturday 
night, a good many would demand, like the sailor, 
that the property be divided again, as they no longer 
retained their proportion." 

This produced a smile, and as it was late, the 
company broke up and departed. Those who had 
had an opportunity of bringing forward their views 
were very much edified ; others who had been obliged 
to listen, or to keep back their own projects, thought 
the party exceedingly dull, and could not help think- 
ing that the evening had been spent very unprofita- 
bly. 

There were, indeed, persons there with plans of 
reform as wise, as deep, and as practicable as those 
I have taken notice of, and I owe an apology to 
their authors for my omissions. These omissions are 
the result of no ill feeling, and of no intentional neg- 
lect; and I certainly would repair them, but as I am 
pressed for time, and am .not writing a history of re- 
formers and projected reforms in a thousand volumes 
in-folio, the thing is absolutely out of the question. 
Let it suffice for me to say, that I have by me still 
some thousand and one of these projects, all of 
which their authors did me the honor to send me, 



A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM. Ill 

with their respects, and all of which I examined 
with all the care and diligence they deserved. 

I returned to my lodgings, not so much enlight- 
ened or edified by what I had heard as I might have 
desired, though not much disappointed or discou- 
raged. No plan had been suggested that was not 
unsatisfactory, and, taken in itself alone, that was 
not obviously either mischievous or absurd. But 
under them all I saw one and the same spirit, the 
spirit of the age, and all were striking indications of 
a great and powerful movement in the direction of 
something different from what is now the established 
order. No one of them would be realized, but it 
was well to encourage this movement, to join with 
this free and powerful spirit. Something, as Mr. 
Micawber was wont to say, " might turn up," and 
out of the seeming darkness light might at length 
shine, and out of the apparent chaos order might 
finally spring forth. I would lend myself to the 
spirit working, and trust to future developments. 
With that I undressed, went to bed, and dreamed 
of Leila, no, Priscilla; no, yes, — it was Priscilla. I 
was the victorious champion of reform. She was 
binding my brow with the crown of laurel, when I 
awoke, and was sad that it was only a dream. 



112 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE CONSPIRACY. 



I slept late the next morning, and it was the 
middle of the forenoon before I awoke. I arose, 
made my toilette, drank a cup of coffee, and went 
to arrange my future plans with Priscilla. I found 
her sad and apprehensive. She was a true woman, 
and had no misgivings as to the excellence of the 
cause she had espoused, but she feared that the con- 
versations of the previous evening might have dis- 
heartened me, and made me change my resolution. 
I set her mind at rest on this point, and assured* her 
that, though I might often change my methods of 
effecting a resolution once taken, yet nothing could 
prevent my persistence in it but an absolute convic- 
tion of its wickedness, or its absolute impossibility. 
I had wedded myself to the spirit of the age for bet- 
ter or for worse, and would, if need be, devote my- 
self body and soul to the cause of World-Reform. 

On hearing me say this, her face brightened up, 
and shone with a radiance I had never seen it wear 
before. She seemed perfectly happy, and turned to 
me with a look of perfect satisfaction. I will not 
say that at that moment I had not forgotten the 
lady's husband, and I will not pretend to say what 



THE CONSPIRACY. 113 

words of misplaced tenderness might have been ut- 
tered or responded to, if we had been left to our- 
selves. She was young, beautiful, fascinating, and 
I was a man in the prime of life. Happily, as the 
interview was becoming dangerous, Mr. Merton was 
announced. This young man, who seemed to have 
thought beyond his years, had deeply interested me 
the previous evening. I knew not who he was, 
whence he came, or why he associated with persons 
with whom he seemed to have very little sympathy. 
He was evidently a gentleman, and well educated. 
His dress w T as rich but plain, his manners were 
simple and unpretending. He was tall and well 
proportioned, with a classical head, a high, broad 
forehead, large, black eyes, and very thick, dark hair. 
His features were open and manly, and his voice 
low, rich, and musical. It was a pleasure to hear 
him speak. His name was English, but he seemed to 
be of foreign descent, although I afterwards learned 
that he was an American, and even a New Eng- 
lander, but bred and educated abroad. He apolo- 
gized for calling, but he could not refrain from paying 
his respects to his fair and amiable hostess of the 
evening. He hoped that she had enjoyed herself 
with her guests, and that she had suffered no incon- 
venience from the heat of the rooms occasioned by 
so great a crowd, tie was most happy also to meet 
me. He had heard of me, knew and highly es- 
teemed some of my friends, and regretted that he 
10* 



114 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

had not previously had the honor of making my ac- 
quaintance. 

He was requested to be seated, and assured that 
his call was most agreeable, and that we both hoped 
to meet him often and cultivate a further acquaint- 
ance. The conversation ran on for some time in an 
easy natural way, on a variety of general topics, till 
Priscilla, whose soul was absorbed in her philan- 
thropic projects, asked Mr. Merton how it happened 
that she had the pleasure of meeting him so often 
among reformers. " You evidently," said she, " are 
not of us. The quiet remarks, sometimes serious, 
sometimes sarcastic, which you every now-and-then 
make, prove that you have no sympathy with us." 

" I am not surprised, my dear Madam, at your 
question," replied Mr. Merton, " yet I too am a re- 
former, in my way, perhaps not precisely in your 
way, nor on so large a scale as that on which you 
and your friends propose to carry on reform. I have 
not the talent, nor the disposition to engage in any 
thing so magnificent. I think reform, like charity, 
should begin at home." 

" But not end there," said I. 

" Certainly not," he replied ; " certainly not with 
those who have leisure and means to carry it further. 
But I find that it is more than I can do, by my un- 
assisted efforts, to reform myself, and if I can succeed 
in saving my own soul, I shall be quite contented. 
It is, I fear, more than I shall be able to do." 



THE CONSPIRACY. 115 

" I see, sir, you are no philanthropist," said Pris- 
cilla. 

" Perhaps not, I am comparatively a young man, 
but am quite old-fashioned in many of my notions." 
" One of those, I dare say, who have eyes only in 
the back side of their heads, and live only among 
tombs," said I, in a tone between jesting and 
earnest. 

" I have not yet sufficiently mastered the wisdom 
of antiquity to be authorized to cry out against it," 
he replied. " I make no doubt, however, but you, 
dear lady, and you my learned friend, are quite com- 
petent to reject the old wisdom for the new." 

" On the contrary, I am inclined to think that my 

present tendency is to reject the new for the old, the 

modern for the ancient. Or, rather, it seems to me 

that the progress of modern science is rapidly and 

, surely leading us back to the ancient wisdom." 

" There were in the old world, as there are in the 

modern, two wisdoms, the wisdom from above, and 

the wisdom from below. May I be permitted to ask 

to which of these you regard modern science as con- 

| ducting?" 

I " There has been in regard to these ancient wis- 
doms," said Priscilla, " much misconception. The 
1 world in its nonage was imposed upon, and induced 
I to call evil good and good evil. The wisdom I as- 
! sume, and am laboring to diffuse, is that which the 
priests have branded as Satanic. Satan is my hero. 



116 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

He was a bold and daring rebel, and the first to set 
the example of resistance to despotism, and to assert 
unbounded freedom. For this all the priests, all 
rulers, despots, all who would hold their brethren in 
bondage, have cursed him. I take his part, and hope 
to live to see his memory vindicated, and amends 
made for the wrong which has been done him." 

" That is a candid avowal, my fair lady, and one 
which we seldom, especially among your sex, hear 
made. I suspect, that Madame Priscilla has listened 
or will listen to the modern spiritualism, which 
seems to me to be a revival of demonic worship. May 
I entreat you, dear lady, to pause and reconsider the 
conclusion to which you have come ? The ancient 
Gentiles deserted the true God, the Creator of hea- 
ven and earth, and all things visible and invisible, 
and followed strange gods, erected their temples and 
consecrated their altars to devils, to fallen spirits, 
and I need not tell you how their minds became 
darkened, and their hearts corrupted. Do not, I en- 
treat you, seek to revive the gross, cruel, and obscene 
superstitions of the ancient Gentiles, and on which 
Christianity has made an unrelenting war from the 
first." 

" I was sure, Mr. Merton, you were a parson. 
Will you deny it now?" said Priscilla. 

" I am not aware that I have said any thing but 
what any honest Christian or fair-minded man, who 
really wishes well to his fellow beings, and who has 



THE CONSPIRACY. 117 

read history, might not very well say. It is not ne- 
cessary to be a parson, I should hope, in order to 
have good sense and good feeling." 

" I do not see, Mr. Merton," said I, " any tendency 
to superstition in modern spiritualism. Superstition 
is in charging to supernatural intervention what is 
explicable on natural principles." 

" That is one form of superstition," replied Mr. 
Merton, "but there is another, which consists in 
ascribing effects to inadequate causes, as where one 
augurs good luck from seeing the new moon over 
his right shoulder, or bad luck if on the day he sets 
out on his travels a red squirrel crosses his path. 
But I interrupt you." 

" I believe the spirits which are evoked in our 
days are real, but that they are the primal forces of 
nature, and that it is on strictly natural principles 
that they are called to our aid," I resumed. " There 
is no superstition in this." 

" It is not improbable that the ancient Gentiles 
thought as much. I am by no means disposed to 
ascribe all the phenomena of mesmerism, table-turn- 
ing, and spiritual rapping to superhuman or preter- 
natural agency. Satan can affect us only through 
the natural, but through that he may carry us be- 
yond or drag us below nature. I believe mesmer- 
ism, strictly speaking, is natural, but I believe also 
that its practice is always dangerous, and that it 
throws its subjects under the power of Satan. In 
the so-called mesmeric phenomena there are those 



118 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

which are natural, and those which are Satanic, al- 
though in the present state of our science it may 
not be easy in all cases to distinguish between 
them." 

Here the conversation, which was beginning to 
interest me, (for I had a lurking suspicion that Mr. 
Merton was right,) was interrupted by the entrance 
of Signor Urbini, who gave unequivocal signs that 
the presence of Mr. Merton was very disagreeable 
to him. Mr. Merton, probably not wishing to en- 
counter young Italy, or to enter into a contest with 
him at that time, after a few commonplace remarks, 
took his leave. Young Italy was full of fire and 
enthusiasm, but at the same time, well informed, 
subtile, and clear-headed. He had been implicated 
in a conspiracy for overthrowing the Austrian go- 
vernment in Milan, and had escaped to England, 
where he had concerted with the friends of Italy a 
plan for revolutionizing the whole peninsula. He 
had come to the United States to enlist as large a 
portion of our own people as possible on his side, 
and to obtain pecuniary aid in carrying out his revo- 
lutionary projects. For himself he had no religion, 
and feared neither God nor the devil. At heart, as 
does every Italian liberal, he despised Protestantism, 
as a religion ; but his chief reliance was on Protest- 
ant nations, and he made a skilful and adroit appeal 
to the Protestant hatred of Popery. Italy was the 
stronghold of Popery, and if Italy could be wrested 
from the Pope, the whole fabric of superstition and 



THE CONSPIRACY. 119 



not be done by any direct attacks on the national 
religion, or any direct advocacy of the doctrines of 
the Reformation. Out of Italy the appeal might be 
made to the Protestant feeling, but in Italy, and by 
all the leaders of the Italian party it must be made 
solely to the national sentiment as against Austria, 
and to the love of liberty, the democratic sentiment, 
as against the Pope and the native princes. War 
must be made on the Pope indeed, but ostensibly 
on him only as temporal prince. Overthrown as 
temporal prince, and his States declared a Republic, 
and maintained as such, the church, as the upholder 
of tyranny on the Continent, would be annihilated, 
and universal democracy, and a purely democratic 
religion could be established throughout the world; 
and civilization, arrested by the Goths and Vandals, 
who overturned the old Roman Empire, might re- 
sume its triumphant march through the ages. Plans 
were forming to make the democratic revolution as 
nearly simultaneous as possible in France, Austria, 
Prussia, and Central Germany ; at least to give these 
countries sufficient employment at home to render 
them unable to go to the assistance of the Pope. 

Subsidiary to his purpose, he proposed a grand 
World's Convention, composed of delegates from 
the whole Protestant w T orld, to. be holden as soon as 
possible at London. It might be assembled osten- 
sibly for the purpose of bringing about a better feel- 
ing and closer union of the various Protestant sects, 



120 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

and none but those who could be safely trusted 
should be initiated into its ulterior objects. Only 
the managers need know its real purpose, or modus 
operandi. It might form a Protestant Alliance, and 
recommend the formation of Protestant associations 
in all Protestant States for the protection of the 
Reformation against Popery, the conversion of the 
Pope and his Italian subjects. These associations 
would have nothing to do but to raise funds, and 
meet once a year, hear reports, and listen to flaming 
speeches in praise of the Bible and religious liberty, 
and against the tyranny, idolatry, and superstition 
of Popery. Thus they would, without knowing it, 
prepare the way and furnish the means of driving 
the foreigner out of Italy, dethroning the Pope, 
establishing the Roman Republic, and spreading 
liberty throughout the world, and in a way, too, not 
to alarm the religious sensibilities of the Italians, 
because those who showed themselves to Italians 
would have apparently no connection with the Pro- 
testant movement.* 

The plan of Young Italy, communicated with 
further details, and which was substantially carried 
out from 1845 to 1849, when, contrary to all human 
foresight, Republican — not Imperial — France sup- 
pressed the Roman Republic, and restored the Pope, 
struck Priscilla and myself as admirable, and we 

* This is in the main historical, and was communicated to the writer 
through a mutual friend, by a delegate from Connecticut to the 
World's Convention, alluded to in the text. 



THE CONSPIRACY. 121 

resolved to give it our hearty support. I hoped, by 
the new power I had discovered, or was on the point 
of discovering, to bring an unexpected force to its 
aid. The Signer accepted our pledges, enrolled our 
names, administered to us the oath, and gave us the 
signs and passwords agreed upon by the government 
of Young Italy. 

When Signor Urbini had taken his leave of us, 
we, that is, Priscilla and myself, came to a mutual 
understanding of the respective parts we were to 
perform. We agreed that it was useless for either 
to attempt any thing without the other. Our cove- 
nant was sealed. Poor Priscilla, little did she fore- 
see what the future had in store for her! But let 
me not anticipate. We embraced, and I returned 
to my lodgings, intending to leave the next day for 
my home in western New York. Hardly had I re- 
gained my lodgings at the hotel, when I was called 
upon by the stanch old puritan, Mr. Cotton. I 
have departed far enough from the stand-point of 
my puritan ancestors, and have few traces in my 
moral constitution of my puritan descent; but, I 
care not who knows it, I am proud of these stern 
old men, the Bradfords, the Brewsters, the Hookers, 
the Davenports, and the stout Miles Standish, who 
came forth into a new world to battle with the wil- 
derness, the savage, and the devil. Stern they were, 
stout-hearted, and strong of arm, yet not without a 
touch of human feeling. They had their loves, their 
affections, and their soft moments, when Jonathan 
ll 



122 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

or Ezekiel wooed his Beulah or his Keziah, who 
blushingly responded to his addresses, and the hus- 
band kissed his wife, the mother her boy, if it was 
not on the Sabbath. Honor to their memory ! They 
did man's work, and earned man's wages, and as 
well might one of the modern Trasteverini blush 
for his old Roman progenitors, as I for my old 
puritan ancestors, who brought with them the 
bravest hearts and the best laws and the noblest in- 
stitutions of old England, which they loved so ten- 
derly, though she sent them forth as the Patriarch's 
wife did Hagar and the dear Ismael into the desert. 
I liked Mr. Cotton, too, for his great ancestor's sake, 
for great, O Cotton Mather, thou wast in thy day ; 
hard service didst thou against fiends and witches, 
and powers invisible; and a noble epic hast thou 
left us in thy Magnalia. The college thou lovedst 
so well, and which thou didst cherish in thy heart of 
hearts, "pro Christo et Ecclesia" may have ceased 
to cherish thy memory, and the Second Church, over 
which thou wast pastor as colleague with thy father, 
has learned to blush at thy memory, and to imagine 
it shows its wisdom in calling thee a "learned fool." 
I, who have as little sympathy with them as with 
thee, honor thee as one of the worthies of my coun- 
try, and as one who was not the least among the 
worthies of my native land in thy day and genera- 
tion. Men look upon thee as antiquated, and fancy 
that they have become wiser than thou wast. Would 
to Heaven they had a little of thy good sense, and 



THE CONSPIRACY. 123 

of the truth, which thou wast not ashamed to profess 
and defend! 

But this is quite aside from my purpose, and is 
artistically considered a blemish in my narrative. 
But few are the writers who, if they speak out from 
warm hearts their true, deep, genuine feelings as 
they arise, but will violate some canon of art. I 
love art, but I love nature more. I love a smoothly 
shaven lawn ; I say nothing against your artificial 
garden, trim and neat, where each plant and shrub 
grows and flowers according to rule ; but the wild 
forest, with its irregularities, decaying logs, huge 
trees, fresh saplings, and tangled underbrush, was as 
a boy, when it was my home, and is now I am a 
man, much more my delight. By the same token, 
I love Boston, whose streets were laid out by the 
cows going through the brushwood to drink, where 
you cannot find a square corner, or a street a hun- 
dred yards in length without a curve, better than 
the city of Penn, laid out by a carpenter's line and 
chalk, and presenting only the dull monotony of the 
chess-board, without the excitement of the game. 
Yet the city of Penn has its merits. Many a plea- 
sant hour have I spent there, and many a sweet 
association is entwined in my memory with its rect- 
angles, and its plain, uniform, drab-colored costume. 
But I have left Mr. Cotton all this time standing. 
It was unintentional, for I was not displeased to see 
him. He knew me as the son of an old friend, and 
he had, both as a friend and as a minister of religion, 



124 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

called to expostulate with me. He was sure that 
I was imperilling my soul, and he could not answer 
it to his conscience, if he did not solemnly and yet 
affectionately warn me of my danger. 

I have been sadly remiss in my faith and in my 
conduct, yet never have I allowed myself to treat 
with scorn or contumely any professed minister of 
religion who addressed me in tones of sincerity and 
affectionate earnestness. Mr. Cotton, I was sure, 
meant well, although I knew his expostulations 
would avail nothing, and his warning be unheeded. 
I listened with respect, but untouched. At that time 
my heart was hard. I was laboring under a perfect- 
delusion, and body and soul were under the pow T er 
of the Evil One. " You may not believe it, Doctor," 
said Mr. Cotton, " but I tell you that you are form- 
ing a league w T ith the devil. I know you have 
grown wiser than your fathers were ; that you deny 
the existence of a devil or of evil spirits, but you are 
wise only in your own conceit, and you are now 
really dealing with the devil, are plotting to do the 
devil's work, under pretence of science and world-re- 
form. I have watched you these many months, and 
I see where you are going. You are also permitting 
yourself to be seduced by a Moabitish woman, and 
allowing yourself to be cheated, with your eyes open, 
out of your five senses by the sparkle of her eye, and 
the ruby of her lip. "Why have you suffered her to 
bewitch you ? Leave her, never see her or speak to 
her again, or you are a lost man." 



THE CONSPIRACY. 



125 



I am naturally a very mild-tempered man, and am 
not and never was very sensitive to wounds inflicted 
by the tongue ; and Mr. Cotton might have abused 
me or said all manner of hard things against me till 
he was exhausted, and I could have remained un- 
moved ; but when he alluded to my relation with 
another, especially since I could not defend it, and 
called the beautiful, the lovely, the philanthropic 
Priscilla a Moabitish woman, and attacked her ho- 
nor, my blood was up, and I instantly resolved that 
he should suffer for it. I however kept this to my- 
self, assured him that he was uncharitable, and 
judged an estimable lady rashly ; that my relations 
with Priscilla were not precisely a matter for his 
cognizance, as we were neither of us under his paro- 
chial charge. I respected him as an old friend of 
i my fathers, and as a descendant of one of the great- 
est men of the early Massachusetts Colony. I had 
no doubt of his good intentions, and affectionate in- 
terest in me and my family; but I was of age, and 
competent to take care of myself. What I was 
doing I was doing with my eyes open, calmly, de- 
liberately, and from what I held to be justifiable 
motives. I was prepared to take the responsibility. 
Warnings, expostulations, would avail nothing. I 
was resolved to push my scientific investigations to 
the furthest limits possible. I would, if I should be 
able, wrest from nature her last secret, and avail my- 
self of all her mysterious forces. I did not pretend 
to say whether there were devils and evil spirits or 
11* 



126 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

not, although I believed God made all things good, 
very good ; but if there were, I had nothing to do 
with them, for I invoked mysterious agencies only 
for a good end, in the cause of philanthropy and hu- 
man progress. If they were spirits I was dealing 
with, they must be white spirits rather than black ; 
and if I studied and even practised magic, I was 
sure it was not black magic, but white. 

" All that is very well said," replied Mr. Cotton, 
" and yet you know that you are carried away by 
indiscreet curiosity, by an unholy ambition, and 
perhaps by lawless lust, and you dare not, alone in 
your closet, ask the blessing of God on your pro- 
ceedings. Bear with me. I am an old man, and 
let my gray hairs plead with you, if not my sacred 
profession. I know that the young men of our time 
lose their reverence for religion, and turn up their 
noses in profound disgust when we speak to them of 
duty and the solemn responsibilities of life. I know 
they are impatient of restraint, and burning with a 
passion for liberty, as they call it. I know they 
deem it wisdom to depart from the old ways, to 
forsake the God of their fathers, and to hew out to 
themselves cisterns, alas, broken cisterns, which will 
hold no water. But let me tell you, my friend, that 
they are only sowing the seeds of future sorrow, and 
will reap only a too abundant harvest. No man in 
his old age ever regretted that he feared God and 
practised virtue in his youth." 

"All that may be very true, Mr. Cotton, but much 



THE CONSPIRACY. 127 

of it comes with no good grace from a Puritan who 
has allowed himself the freedom of his own judg- 
ment in religious matters. It is not long since your 
fathers forsook their fathers' God, and hewed out 
cisterns for themselves ; whether broken cisterns or 
not, it is not for me to say ; certainly they departed 
from the old ways, followed the new wisdom of their 
times, and you honor them for it. Perhaps posterity 
will in like manner honor me and my associates for 
daring to follow the new wisdom of our times, and 
to incur reproach for my adhesion to the work of 
human emancipation. I am enlarging the bounda- 
ries of human knowledge, laying open to view the 
invisible world, and proving that, under the old doc- 
trine of the communion of saints, there is a great 
and glorious truth, cheering and consoling to us in 
this life of labor and sorrow. I am freeing the world 
from the monster, superstition, and delivering the peo- 
ple from their gloomy fears and terrible apprehensions. 
They shall no longer start and tremble at ghosts and 
hobgoblins, or be obliged, with the Papists, to cross 
themselves, or with our New England youth, to 
whistle Yankee Doodle to keep their courage up, 
when, after dark, they go by a graveyard. What 
torture did not my superstitious fears cause me in 
my childhood! I never have known what it was to 
fear any living thing. I have been tried, and have 
always found my courage and self-possession equal 
i to the occasion, and I could alone face an armed 
host without trembling ; but even now I cannot open 



1 



128 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

the door into a dark room without trepidation, with- 
out starting back till reason comes to my aid. I 
never sit alone in my room reading till twelve o'clock 
at night, without having a mysterious awe creep over 
me. I am oppressed by the presence of the invisible, 
and my very lamp seems to burn blue. All is the 
sad effect of the frights I received in my childhood, 
occasioned by the ghost and witch stories which old 
people would meet together and tell of a long win- 
ter's evening. I, a lad, listened with ears erect, and 
hair standing on end. My blood seemed to freeze 
in my veins, and I dared not look around me lest I 
should see the invisible. I was ready to shriek with 
agony when sent to bed in the dark, and unless 
watched would throw myself into bed without taking 
off my clothes, and cover up my head and face in 
the bed blanket. How terrible was the dark ! The 
impression wears not out with time, and will remain 
till death. Now I would free the mind from all these 
idle fears, and save the people, especially children, 
from these terrible sufferings. It is a good work, and 
none but white spirits will aid me in it." 

"Alas ! you seem not to have reflected that the 
devil, when he would seduce, can disguise himself as 
an angel of light. Human nature is terribly corrupt, 
and yet the great mass of mankind ordinarily are 
incapable of choosing evil, for the reason that it is 
evil. Evil must be presented to them in the guise 
of good, or they will not choose it The devil 
knows this, and knows the weak side of every one, 



THE CONSPIRACY. 129, 

and he adapts his temptations accordingly. The 
weak side of our age is a morbid sentimentality, a 
sickly philanthropy, and the devil tempts us now by 
appealing to our dominant weakness. He comes to 
us as a philanthropist, and his mouth full of fine 
sentiments, and he proposes only what we are 
already prepared to approve. Were he to come as 
the devil in propria persona, and tell us precisely who 
and what he is, there are very few who would not 
say, ' Get behind me, Satan.' Nothing better serves 
his purpose than to have us deny his existence ; to 
ascribe his influence to imagination, hallucination, 
to natural causes or influences, or in fine, to good 
spirits, for then he throws us off our guard, and can 
operate without being easily detected. Never was 
an age more under his influence than our own, and 
yet they who pass for its lights and chiefs have 
reached that last infirmity of unbelief, the denial of 
the existence of the devil. Possessed persons are 
insane, epileptic, or lunatic persons, and the wonder- 
ful phenomena they exhibit are produced by an elec- 
tric, magnetic, or odic fluid, and are to be explained 
on natural principles, and such as cannot be so ex- 
plained, are boldly denied, however well attested, 
or ascribed to jugglery, knavery, or collusion. The 
marvellous answers of the ancient oracles are ascrib- 
ed to knavery, as if the whole world had lost their 
senses, and could not detect a cheat practised before 
their very eyes, and so bunglingly, that we who live 
two thousand or three thousand years after, ignorant 



130 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

of all the circumstances of the case, can detect it, 
and explain how it was done, without the slightest 
difficulty. The devil laughs at this. He would 
have it so. Your natural explanations will hereafter 
create a suspicion that you are little better than 
natural fools. But go your way. I see by your in- 
credulous smile that the devil has you fast in his 
grip. I have done my duty. My garments are 
clean of your blood ; and hereafter, when you are 
feeling the gnawings of that worm which never dies, 
and the burning of that fire which is never quenched, 
say not, that no one had forewarned you." 

So saying, he took up his hat and cane, and, 
slightly bowing, left my room without hearing a 
word in reply, or giving me a parting greeting. 
When he was gone, I laughed to myself at his 
solemn admonition, and renewed my resolution that 
he should suffer for the manner in which he alluded 
to my dear Priscilla. He should know whether she 
was a Moabitish woman or not. Warn me ! Pray 
what had I done ? Where was the harm ? Was it 
wrong to investigate the principles of nature, to 
learn what nature really is, and to call her forces 
into play, providing they were not applied to a bad 
end ? Could it be a good spirit that would debar 
us from acquiring science, or a bad spirit that would 
bid us inquire, to learn our strength, and to use it? 
Would it be no slight service to relieve the more 
mysterious parts of science from the reproaches 
cast upon them ? Has it not been computed that 



THE CONSPIRACY. 131 

more than a million of persons alone suffered as 
sorcerers and sorceresses, or for dealing with the 
devil, in the sixteenth century and seventeenth 
aione ? What injury has not been done to genuine 
science by the absurd legislation against magic, sor- 
cery, and the so called black arts generally. No 
man could rise above the vulgar herd, and produce 
some ingenious piece of mechanism, but the rabble 
accused him of magic, and it was lucky if he 
escaped a criminal prosecution and conviction be- 
fore the courts of justice. Was not that noble hero- 
ine, Joan of Arc, who saved France from becoming 
an English province, burnt as a witch ? Was not 
Friar Bacon, the father of modern science, and the 
forerunner of his namesake of Verulam, accused of 
magic, imprisoned, and thus scientific discoveries and 
useful inventions postponed for centuries ? Had not 
hundreds of old women, who had nothing of sorcery 
about them but their poverty, weakness, and imbe- 
cility, been dragged before the courts, and hung or 
burnt as witches ? What more lamentable page 
in our own American history than that of Salem 
witchcraft ? Is it nothing to disabuse the world, to 
save so many innocent victims, remove so great a 
hinderance to science and heroic deeds, by bringing 
the class of facts, superstitiously interpreted, within 
the bounds of nature and legitimate science ? Then, 
again, what may not be finally obtained for the 
human race ? Are the resources of nature exhaust- 
ed ? They sought once the philosopher's stone, the 



132 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

elixir of life, the fountain of youth ; who knows but 
these may one day, and that not far distant, be 
found, if not in the shape sought, in others, more 
simple and convenient ? 

Thus I resisted the admonitions of the good old 
man, and confirmed myself in my resolution. I 
meditated a long time as to my future procedure, 
and how I could bring my new science, which I 
trusted soon to complete, to bear on the great revo- 
lutionary movement which the active spirits of the 
day had concerted, and which must soon break out. 
I could discern my way only dimly, but I trusted 
the mist would soon clear away, and my method be 
no longer obscure or uncertain. Monarchy must be 
overthrown because it upholds religion, and religion 
because it upholds monarchy, and imposes vexatious 
restraints. So much was clear, and determined on. 
Time and events would reveal the rest. 

Late in the evening I called at Priscilla's, saw her 
a moment, whispered a word in her ear, gave her 
one or two directions, pressed her hand, only as my 
accomplice, and henceforth my slave. The next 
morning I left Philadelphia, and returned home a 
much altered man. My body was light and buoy- 
ant, and I felt as if I was all spirit. I simply greeted 
my mother, but felt that the strong tie which bound 
me to her was broken ; my sister, whom I had ten- 
derly loved, was indifferent to me, and I hardly 
deigned to notice her. I went into my laboratory, 
saw that all was right there ; from that I passed into 
my library to resume my experiments. 



133 



CHAPTER X. 



MR, COTTON IS PUZZLED. 



I proceeded to magnetize my table. It responded 
as usual. I put my former questions, but could get 
no answer to them, except that the time for the reve- 
lation I solicited was not yet come. I asked, if there 
was not a more direct mode of communication pos- 
sible, and was told there was. By speech ? Not yet. 
By writing? Yes. I took a slate and pencil, and 
placed my hand in the attitude to write. Imme- 
diately my hand was moved by an invisible force, 
and a communication was made in the handwriting 
and signed with the name of my father, who had 
been dead some eight or nine years. The purport 
of it was not much. I did not know but I uncon- 
sciously moved the pencil myself. I wished a bet- 
ter test. I placed the slate on the table, laid the 
pencil on it, and called up the power, whoever or 
what it might be, to write without my assistance. 
Very soon the pencil rose fully up, then fell back, 
then rose again, and after vacillating awhile, it be- 
came firm in its position and was moved regularly 
backwards and forwards, as if directed by the hand 
of a scribe. At length it flew up to the ceiling, 
whirled round there for a few seconds, and then 

12 



134 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

placed itself quietly on the slate. I examined the 
slate, found a communication on it in the handwrit- 
ing and signed with the name of Benjamin Franklin. 
The communication consisted of one or two pro- 
verbs from Poor Richard, and a commonplace re- 
mark about electricity. All this was marvellous 
enough, but very little to my purpose. It was not 
worth while taking so much trouble to get what was 
of no use when got. 

I sat down in my great arm-chair a few feet from 
my table, and fell into a brown study. How long I 
remained so I do not know, when I was aroused by 
a great racket in my room. My table was cutting 
up capers, rising now to the ceiling and now frisking 
round the room, anon balancing itself on one leg, 
and then going off into a whirl, that would have 
broken the heart of the best waltzer, all to a tune 
which some invisible hand was playing upon my 
guitar, — tune I say, but it was rather a capriccio, 
and a medley of a dozen different melodies, thrown 
together in the wildest disorder. Very soon this 
stopped, and then came thundering raps all about 
my room, making every thing in it jar. I bid them 
be quiet, and not all speak at once, like a lot of 
old women at a tea-party. They partially obeyed 
me. One rapper however continued, but in a more 
gentle and polite manner. I was willing to have 
some conversation with him. I asked him who he 
was? He would not answer. What did he want? 
To communicate. Very well, I would listen; and 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 135 

he told me that I was not a good medium myself, 
for I held the spirits in awe. Ah, spirits, are you ? 
said I. " Yes." Very well; I shall be very happy 
to make your acquaintance. " But you must find 
us other mediums ; we cannot speak freely with you." 
Close by me lived the Fox family. There were 
three sisters ; one was married, and the other two 
were simple, honest-minded young girls, one fifteen, 
the other thirteen. As I passed by their house, I 
saw them in the yard. I greeted them, and offered 
them some flowers which I held in my hand. The 
youngest took them, thanked me with a smile, and 
I pursued ray walk. These were the since world- 
renowned Misses Fox. In a short time afterwards 
they began to be startled by strange, mysterious 
knockings, which they could not account for, and 
which greatly annoyed them. It is not by any 
means my intention to follow these girls, in their 
course since, with whom I have had very little direct 
communication; but I owe it to them and to the 
public to say, that they were simple-minded, honest 
girls, utterly incapable of inventing any thing like 
these knockings, or of playing any trick upon the 
public. The knockings were and are as much a 
mystery for them as for others, and they honestly be- 
lieve that through them actual communication is 
held with the spirits of the departed. They are in 
good faith, as they some time since evinced by their 
wish to become members of the Catholic Church, 
which certainly they would not have wished, in this 



136 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

country at least, if they looked upon themselves as 
impostors, and had only worldly and selfish ends in 
view. They are no doubt deceived, not as to the 
facts, as to the phenomena of spirit-rappings, but as 
to the explanation they give or attempt to give of 
them. They have not always been treated, I fear, 
with due tenderness, and sufficient pains has not 
been taken to enlighten them as to the real nature of 
these phenomena. 

But who need be surprised at this? Received sci- 
ence rejects every thing of the sort, for it recognizes 
no invisible world, believes in neither angel nor spirit, 
and explains every thing on natural principles. Even 
theologians have to a great extent forgotten the ter- 
rible influence, in times past, of demonic agencies, 
and, if they do not absolutely reject the instances 
recorded in the Bible, they are disposed to treat all 
other cases as humbuggery, knavery, deception, or to 
class them with epilepsy, insanity, hallucination, 
and other diseases to which we are subject, and to 
dismiss them, when they cannot be denied, with the 
physicians, under the heads of mania, monomania, 
nymphomania, demonopathy, &c. I have before me 
the Dictionaire Infernal of M. Collin de Plancy, ap- 
proved by the late Archbishop of Paris, — him who 
fell so gloriously on the barricades, June, 1848, 
whither he had gone as a minister of charity and 
peace, — in which, from beginning to end, there is a 
studied effort to represent all these dark and myste- 
rious phenomena as explicable without any resort to 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 137 

superhuman or diabolical agency. The excellent 
author seems to write on the supposition that all 
the world, the physicians, the clergy, the magistrates, 
the civil and ecclesiastical courts during all past times 
were merely old grannies, and had no sound doctrine, 
and no capacity for investigating the truth of facts 
obvious to their senses. With his mode of reasoning, 
and with far less violence, I can explain away all 
the miraculous or mysterious relations in Biblical 
history. But so strong is the current against Sa- 
tanic agency in the production of these phenomena, 
and such the prevailing and shortsighted incredulity 
of our times, that even those who suspect the true 
explanation are, for the most part, deterred from the 
ridicule which would be showered upon them from 
avowing it. 

It is no wonder that no kind, considerate friend 
was found to take these poor Fox girls by the hand, 
and attempt to rescue them from their dangerous 
state. The great mass of those who could have 
done so, either paid no attention at all to the myste- 
rious phenomena asserted, or looked upon the whole 
matter as mere humbug. It was easier to crack a 
joke at the expense of spirit-rappers, than it was to 
investigate the facts alleged, or to offer the true and 
proper explanation. I had foreseen that it would be 
so, or at least, had foreseen that they, whose duty it- 
is to watch over the interests of religion and morals, 
were unprepared to meet the phenomena with suc- 
cess ; that they would at first deny and laugh, and 
12* 



138 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

then vituperate and denounce, but would hardly un- 
derstand and explain till too late, or till immense 
mischief had been done. Even now the first stage 
is hardly passed, and the movement I commenced 
by a present of flowers to these simple girls has 
extended over the whole Union, invaded Great Bri- 
tain, penetrated France in all directions, carried cap- 
tive all Scandinavia and a large part of Germany, 
and is finding its way into the Italian Peninsula. 
There are some three hundred circles or clubs in the 
city of Philadelphia alone, and the Spiritualists, as 
they call themselves, count nearly a million of be- 
lievers in our own country. Table-turning, necro- 
mancy, divination becomes a religion with some, and 
an amusement with others. The infection seizes all 
classes, ministers of religion, lawyers, physicians, 
judges, comedians, rich and poor, learned and un- 
learned. The movement has its quarterly, monthly, 
and weekly journals, some of them conducted with 
great ability, and the spirits, through the writing 
mediums, have already furnished it a very considera- 
ble library, — yet hardly a serious effort has as yet 
been made in this country to comprehend or arrest 
it. It is making sad havoc with religion, breaking 
up churches, taking its victims from all denomina- 
tions, with stern impartiality; and yet the great 
body of those not under its influence merely deny, 
laugh, or cry out, "humbug!" "delusion!" Delu- 
sion it is. I know it now, but not in their sense. 
The public never suspected me of having had any 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 139 

hand in producing the Rappo-Mania; and the Fox 
girls, even to this day, suspect no connection be- 
tween the flowers I gave them and the mysterious 
knockings which they heard ; and nobody has sup- 
posed Andrew Jackson Davis, the most distinguished 
of the American mediums, of having any relations 
with me. He does not suspect it himself, yet he 
has been more than once magnetized by me, and it 
has been in obedience to my will that he has made 
his revelations. The public have never connected 
my name with the movement, and even Priscilla 
has never known my full share in it. I have had 
my instruments, blind instruments, in all civilized 
countries, with whom I have worked, and yet but 
few of them have know T n me, or seen me. 

My readers may indeed be incredulous as to the 
influence conveyed by flowers; but I shall satisfy 
them on that score before completing my Confes- 
sions. While the Fox girls were annoyed by these 
mysterious knockings, and were beginning to draw 
on them the attention of the curious and the credu- 
lous, and while Andrew Jackson Davis, as yet only a 
somnambulist, was dictating his wonderful revela- 
tions, and learned doctors were disputing whether 
he received them from a white or a black spirit, 
whether he really saw what he professed to see in 
his clairvoyant state, or only reported to the scribe 
the lesson which some cunning scamps had pre- 
viously taught him, and made him commit to me- 
mory ; my old friend Mr. Cotton was made to 



140 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

suffer a severe penalty for the slighting manner 
in which he had spoken of Priscilla. Contrary to 
her usual custom, Priscilla went one Sunday even- 
ing to his evening service. On leaving the meet- 
ing-house, she mingled in the crowd, and so con- 
trived it as to rub against a granddaughter of 
Mr. Cotton, an interesting child of some twelve or 
thirteen years of age, and without anybody observ- 
ing it. She then turned a little aside, got into her 
carriage, which was waiting, and drove home. The 
next day, the young girl, Clara Starkweather, was 
singularly affected. Every thing she touched seemed 
to stick fast to her fingers. All the dresses, cloaks, 
shawls, in the house seemed to have an irresistible 
propensity to fly to her, and arrange themselves on 
her back. She went into the kitchen ; the poker, 
shovel, and tongs, pots, kettles, pails, basins, all set 
to dancing towards and around her, and the frying- 
pan fastened itself on her head as a cap. Her mother 
scolded her, and she, poor thing, began to cry, and 
declared that she did not do it, but that it was done 
by a strange woman, very beautiful, but very wicked, 
whom she did not know. The family were all in 
consternation. Mr. Cotton was called upon to in- 
terpose. He concluded that it was a case of witch- 
craft, or of diabolical obsession. He summoned all 
the inmates of his family to his study. He was a 
brave man, and nothing at all loath to come to hand- 
grip with the devil, for whom, with his orthodoxy, 
he fancied himself more than a match. " We must," 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 141 

he said, "resist the evil one; we must wrestle in 
prayer." With that he seated himself before his 
table, on which lay a splendid edition of the Bible. 
He opened the book, intending to read a chapter, 
before making his prayer. But he had hardly opened 
it before it was violently closed, and rising, seem- 
ingly of itself, hit him a heavy blow in his face, 
which knocked him from his chair, and nearly 
stunned him, and then rested itself on the top of 
Clara's head. Mr. Cotton soon recovered from the 
blow, and stood up, after the manner of his sect, to 
pray. He had hardly opened his mouth, before there 
was heard such a knocking behind the walls, against 
the doors, and under the floor, that every word he 
attempted to utter was completely drowned. It was 
impossible to proceed amid such a thundering din 
and racket, which threatened to pull the house down 
about their ears. Forthwith out marched from the 
library shelves a complete edition of Scott's Family 
Bible. The several volumes drew themselves up on 
the floor, and proceeded, with great skill and even 
science, to knock one another down, while various 
sounds, as of mockery and laughter, were heard from 
various quarters. The brave old man was fain to 
resume his chair, when lo! he found himself seated 
on the heated gridiron. He started up very quick, as 
may be imagined, but happily received no serious 
injury. 

For attraction now succeeded repulsion. All the 
objects near Clara, instead of being drawn towards 



142 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

her, were repelled, and moved away from her. Soon 
one article of her dress after another flew off, and it 
was with the utmost difficulty that they could keep 
enough on her to hide her nakedness. This lasted 
an hour it may be, when all was quiet, and every 
thing was found restored to its place, and Mr. Cotton 
himself began to think that all was some optical illu- 
sion, and to think that he might have been too hasty 
in concluding that the devil was engaged in it. 

However the annoyances were only suspended, 
they were not removed. During the following night 
all in the house were awakened by tremendous 
knockings heard on the walls and under the floor of 
the apartment where Clara slept. All rose, and in 
their night-clothes rushed to her room, and found 
her lying on her bed sobbing, and apparently in 
the greatest agony. The bedclothes and her own 
dresses were scattered all about the room, cut into 
narrow strips and entirely ruined. The rappings 
then were heard in the library. Mr. Cotton took a 
light, and went into the room, and was not a little 
surprised to find it occupied with some half a dozen 
figures of men and women fantastically dressed, all 
seated, and listening with grave faces to an inaudi- 
ble discourse from another figure in Genevan gown 
and band, standing before the table on which Mr. 
Cotton's great Bible lay open. Mr. Cotton was a 
little startled at first, but he summoned up his cou- 
rage and advanced. He went straight up to the 
figure in gown and band, who seemed to have 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 143 

usurped his functions, and boldly laid his hand 
upon his shoulder, Immediately his candle was ex- 
tinguished, and he received a blow which felled him 
to the floor. In a moment he recovered, passed into 
another room, obtained another light, and returned. 
The phantoms were still there, but he now saw 
what they were. The seeming minister was a huge 
folio of theology, moulded into a human shape by 
pieces of carpet, a coat and trousers of his own, 
and dressed in his own gown and band. The other 
figures were volumes from his library, elongated and 
stuffed out in a similar way, and dressed in clothes 
belonging to different members of the family. They 
were stripped, replaced on the book-shelves, and the 
dresses returned to the several wardrobes where 
they belonged. There was no more disturbance 
that night. 

The next day, when the family were all at dinner, 
the table, with every thing on it, suddenly rose to 
the ceiling, and then suddenly dropped upon the 
floor with a noise that shook the whole house, but 
without any other injury, or any thing on it being 
displaced. In the evening, while they were all seated 
around the table, listening to a chapter which Mr. 
Cotton was reading from the Bible, terrible knock- 
ings were again heard all through the room, and 
Clara was seen to be raised as it were by some invi- 
sible hand towards the ceiling, and to be borne with 
great force through the room, and set down stand- 
ing on her head. Then, after a moment, she rose 






144 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

again and hung suspended to the ceiling by her feet 
and her head downwards. After an hour the annoy- 
ances ceased, and the family were left quiet. The 
annoyances continued, varying in their character 
from day to day, for three weeks. 

Priscilla sent me an account of them, and I 
thought my old friend had been sufficiently punish- 
ed. Morever, I did not wish too much eclat to be 
given at that time to the fantastic tricks I was play- 
ing. Mr. Cotton was sure that it was the work of 
the devil, that it was witchcraft, and he did not hesi- 
tate to accuse Priscilla. He had tried to get the 
authorities to arrest her as a witch, but in this he 
had failed ; for, although the laws of Pennsylvania, 
at that time, if not now, recognized witchcraft as a 
punishable offence, no magistrate in the city could 
be found who did not look upon witchcraft as ima- 
ginary, and suspect the good minister of being in need 
of physic and good regimen for entertaining a belief 
in its reality. I however did not wish Priscilla's 
name to become associated in the gossip of the day 
with reported phenomena of the sort, and I sent her 
an order to discontinue the annoyances, and to re- 
store every thing which had been injured to its pre- 
vious condition. The night she received my order, 
the noises ceased, Clara rested quietly, and the 
family were undisturbed. On rising and going 
through the house in the morning, no trace of the 
previous disorder was discovered, every thing was 
in its place, and the clothing and bedding which 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 145 

had been cut into ribbons, were all restored, ^nd not 
a mark of injury was to be found on them. Clara 
was well, and retained no recollection of any thing 
that had happened to her or to the family during the 
period she had been so grievously afflicted. Even 
the family, Mr. Cotton among the rest, began to 
doubt, if they had not been the sport of some 
strange hallucination, and almost to persuade them- 
selves that the annoyances had had no objective 
character. 

All this may strike many as wholly incredible, but 
a thousand instances, as well attested as any facts 
can be, of a similar character, can be adduced. Let 
me be permitted to relate an instance still more mar- 
vellous, which occurred in 1849, at the presbytery or 
parsonage of Cideville, France, in the Department of 
the Lower Seine, and which became indirectly the 
subject of a judicial investigation. The cure of Cide- 
ville encountered at the house of one of his sick 

parishioners, an individual, a Mr. G , who had 

the reputation of curing diseases in a mysterious 
manner. He reproved him severely, and sent him 

away. Shortly after, Mr. G was arrested and 

condemned for his malpractices in other cases, to 
two years' imprisonment. The wretched man, recol- 
lecting the reproof he had received from the cure*, 
believed that it was owing to him that he had been 
arrested and sent to prison, and, it is said, he threw 
out threats of vengeance. One Thorel, a shepherd, 

a friend and disciple of the Mr. G , w T as also 

13 



146 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

heard to say, that the cure would be made to repent 
of what he had done, and that he (Thorel) would 
himself see that his master was avenged, and his 
orders executed. 

Two boys, one twelve, the other fourteen, were 
boarded and educated in the parsonage by the cure. 
They were sons of honest, pious, and much esteemed 
schoolmasters of the district, and appeared to have 
inherited the good qualities of their parents. They 
were both intended for the priesthood, and were a 
great comfort to the good cure, who loved, cherished, 
and instructed them, and perhaps obtained some- 
thing for their board and tuition to eke out his scanty 
means of living. 

One day there was a public auction, where a 
great crowd were collected, and these boys were 
present among the rest. The shepherd, Thorel, 
was there, and seen to approach the younger of 
the two, but nothing more was observed. Imme- 
diately on the return to the parsonage, a violent 
hurricane struck it, followed by blows as from a 
hammer in every part of the house, under the floors, 
above the ceiling, and behind the wainscoting. 
Sometimes these blows were weak, short, abrupt, 
sometimes so violent as to shake the house, and to 
threaten to demolish it, as Thorel, in a moment of 
rashness had foretold. The blows were heard at the 
distance of two kilometres, and a large portion of 
the inhabitants of Cideville, a. hundred and fifty at 
a time, it is said, surrounded the parsonage for hours, 



MR. COTTOIM IS PUZZLED. 147 

examining it in all directions, and seeking in vain to 
discover whence the blows proceeded. 

This was not all. Whilst these mysterious knock- 
ings continued, and made themselves heard on every 
point indicated, they reproduced the exact rhythm of 
whatever air was demanded of them ; the glass in 
the windows were broken, and rattled in every direc- 
tion ; the tables were overturned, or were seen walk- 
ing about ; the chairs were grouped together and sus- 
pended in the air ; the dogs were thrown crosswise 
over one another or were hung by their tails to the 
ceiling ; knives, brushes, breviaries, flew out by one 
window and back through another on the opposite 
side; the shovel and tongs quit of themselves the fire- 
place and walked alone into the room ; the andirons, 
followed by the fire, recoiled from the chimney even 
to the middle of the floor ; hammers flew in the air, 
and dropped as slowly and as softly as a feather 
on the floor ; the utensils of the toilet suddenly 
quitted the chambranle on which they were placed, 
and as suddenly returned of their own accord ; enor- 
mous desks rushed one against another and were 
broken, and one loaded with books approached 
rapidly and horizontally close to the forehead of Mr. 
R. de Saint V , and, without touching him, drop- 
ped perpendicularly upon its feet. 

Madame de Saint V , whose chateau was 

near to the parsonage, whose testimony cannot be 
questioned, and who had witnessed a score of simi- 
lar experiments, felt herself drawn one day by the 



148 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

corner of her mantle, without perceiving the invisi- 
ble hand that drew it. The Mayor of Cideville 
received a violent blow on his thigh, and at the cry 
forced from him by this violence, he received a gentle 
caress, which instantly relieved him from the pain. 

A proprietor, residing fourteen leagues distant, and 
from whom I hold this relation, came unexpectedly 
to Cideville, wholly ignorant of the mysterious events 
which were taking place. After a night spent in the 
chamber of the boys, he questioned the mysterious 
knocking, made it strike in different corners of the 
room, and established with it the conditions of a 
dialogue. One blow, for example, would say yes, 
two blows, no ; then the number of blows would 
indicate the number of the letter in the alphabet, 
&c. This settled, the witness caused to be rapped 
out his surname and Christian name, and tho§e of 
his children, his age and theirs, to the year, month, 
and day, — the name of his commune, &c. All this 
was done with such rapidity that he was obliged to 
conjure the rapper to proceed more slowly, that he 
might have more leisure to verify the answers, all of 
which he found perfectly exact. What is more 
striking is, that this gentleman knew nothing at the 
time of spirit-rapping, then beginning to excite 
attention in the United States, and it was not till 
several weeks after that he heard of it. 

All this, the sceptics will allege, may be attributed 
to jugglery, to the cunning and craft of the juggler, 
divining the thoughts of the interrogator before he 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 149 

had detected them himself. But there was some- 
thing more still ; something which the sceptics will 
hardly be able to explain. A priest, a vicar of St. 

Roch, the Abbe L , came accidentally, and wholly 

unlooked for, to Cideville. To similar questions he 
received apparently through his brother, like himself 
wholly unknown in the place, answers equally prompt 
and exact, but with this singular difference : In one 
instance the questioner himself was ignorant, and 
unable to verify the details of the answer obtained. 
He was, indeed, told the age and Christian name of 
his mother and his brother, but he had either never 
known them or had forgotten them. He however 
took a note of the answers, and, on his return to 
Paris, consulted the registers, and found them liter- 
ally exact. What now becomes of the objection 
against the previous witness, or the explanation in- 
sisted on, that the answer is given by the brain of 
the interrogator ? 

Two landholders from the town of Eu came all 
express to Cideville. They were told their names, 
Christian names, the number of their dogs, their 
horses, &c. But still more astonishing were the 
phenomena that accompanied the boy believed to 
have been touched by the shepherd Thorel. He 
perceived continually near him the shade^ or appear- 
ance of a man, in a blouse, whom he did not know, 
but whom he identified with Thorel, the first time 
he was confronted with that person. Even one of 
the ecclesiastics present, when the boy said he saw 
13 * 



150 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

the phantom, perceived distinctly behind the lad a sort 
of grayish column or fluidic vapor, a phenomenon 
often observed on similar occasions. One day the 
boy fell into convulsions, then into a sort of ecstatic 
syncope, from which for several hours nothing could 
rouse him, and which caused a fear that he was 
dead. Another time he said that he saw a black 
hand descending the chimney, and he cried out that 
it struck him. Nobody could see the hand, but 
those present heard the blow, and saw its mark on 
the face of the child, who in his simplicity ran out 
doors, thinking to see this hand come out the top of 
the chimney. 

At length several ecclesiastics united at the par- 
sonage, and consulted how they might be disem- 
barrassed of the annoyance. One proposed one 
thing, another proposed another, and a third remark- 
ed that he had heard it said that those mysterious 
shades feared the point of a sword. At the risk of 
a • little superstition, they armed themselves with 
swords, and stabbed with them wherever the noises 
were heard. But it is difficult to hit an agent in 
constant and rapid motion, and they were about to 
desist, when one of them, having more skilfully pur- 
sued one of the noises than the others, all at once a 
flame flashed forth, followed by a smoke so dense 
that they were obliged to open all the windows to 
escape immediate suffocation. The smoke dissi- 
pated, and calm succeeding to so terrible an emo- 
tion, they resumed their stabbing, and soon they 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 151 

heard a groan ; they continued, the groaning re- 
doubled, and at length they distinctly heard pro- 
nounced the word "pardon." "Pardon! yes, cer- 
tainly, we will forgive you ; and more than that, we 
will pass all the night in praying for you ; but on 
condition that you come to-morrow, in person, and 
beg pardon of this boy." " Will you forgive us 
all ? " " How many are you ? " " We are five, in- 
cluding the shepherd." " We will forgive you all." 
All then became quiet in the parsonage; and the 
rest of that terrible night was spent calmly in 
prayer. 

The next day, in the afternoon, Thorel presented 
himself at the parsonage. His attitude was hum- 
ble, his language embarrassed, and he attempted to 
conceal with his hat certain bloody excoriations on 
his face. The boy, as soon as he perceived him, ex- 
claimed, " That is the man, that is the man who has 
followed me this fortnight," He pretended, when 
questioned, that he came to get a small organ for 
his master. " Not so, Thorel ; you know it is not 
for that that you have come," he was answered. 
" But whence those wounds on your face ? who has 
given them ? " 

" That is no business of yours ; I will not tell." 

" Tell us, then, what you want. Be frank. Have 
you not come to beg this boy's pardon ? Do it, then. 
Down on your knees." 

" Well, be it so ; pardon then," said Thorel, falling 
upon his knees, and even while begging the lad's 



152 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

pardon, drew himself along, and tried to seize him 
by his blouse. He succeeded; and from that mo- 
ment the sufferings of the boy, and the mysterious 
noises in the parsonage, redoubled. The cure, how- 
ever, persuaded him to go to the mayor's office. He 
went, and as soon as he entered it, he fell three times 
on his knees, without being required, and before all 
the witnesses, begged pardon ; but, at the same time, 
he drew himself along on his knees, and endeavored 
to touch the cure, as he had touched the boy. The 
cure, after retreating to a corner of the room, had, 
in self-defence, to beat him off with his cane. He 

avowed that all was to be referred to M. G , 

whom the cure had prevented from earning his 
bread, and that he could easily disembarrass the par- 
sonage of the annoyances that were passing there, 
if made worth his while. 

The cure, in consequence of what had occurred, 
said, or was reported to have said, that Thorel was 
a sorcerer, and had practised sorcery on the boy at 
the parsonage. Thorel brought, in consequence, an 
action against him for slander. The cause came to 
trial ; the cure pleaded the truth in justification, and 
was acquitted. On the trial, the facts I have stated, 
as well as many others of no less importance, were 
testified to under oath, by a large number of highly 
intelligent and respectable witnesses, and not one of 
them can be denied, if human testimony is in any 
case to be taken as conclusive. 

Persons of sceptical and critical disposition may 



MR. COTTON IS PUZZLED. 153 

imagine that Thorel was concealed behind the wain- 
scot, but the persons who used their swords had 
sense enough to ascertain whether that was so or 
not ; besides, to suppose it, were wholly inconsistent 
with other well-established facts in the case. An 
hypothesis, to be acceptable, must meet and explain 
all the facts, not merely a portion of them. It will 
not do to adopt a theory, and then, after the manner 
of learned academicians and philosophical historians, 
reject as inadmissible all the details of the case not 
compatible with that theory. But I have introduced 
this narrative to prove the credibility of some of my 
own doings, not to prove that there is such a thing 
as is commonly called sorcery — to prove the va- 
lidity of an alleged class of phenomena, not their 
proper explanation. To this latter point I shall have 
occasion, before I close, to speak at full length. 

The annoyances, I may add, continued at the par- 
sonage for some time, in fine till the bishop removed 
the boys, and the malice of the persecutors had com- 
pleted the ruin of the cure. They then ceased, 
when the original reason for producing them had 
been answered.* 

* Pneumatologie des Esprits, par le Marquis Eudes de M — — . 



154 



CHAPTER XL 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 



I failed for a long time yet to get any new light 
on the essential nature of the agent with which I 
was operating, and remained still undecided in my 
own mind whether it was a spiritual person, super- 
human and invisible, or a simple elemental force of 
nature, placed at the command of every man who 
knows how to use his own powers. The answers I 
obtained to my questions were vague, contradictory, 
and unsatisfactory. I had no doubt that I was 
doing what in the eyes of ignorance and superstition 
was called dealing with the devil, and practising 
what had been denounced, and in former times 
punished, by the civil law as sorcery or witchcraft. 
So much was clear and undeniable. But had not 
all the world misunderstood the real nature of what 
it had condemned as witchcraft, sorcery, maleficia, 
and magic? Had they not assumed unnecessarily 
a preternatural agency, and an evil agent, where 
there was really only a natural, a good, and a be- 
nevolent agent? 

The bearing of this question on the Christian reli- 
gion was very obvious, and I well understood the 
significance of what Voltaire said, one day, to a 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 155 

theologian, " Sathan ! c'est le Christianisme tout en- 
tier; pas de Sathan, pas de Sauveur," and I. felt 
that there was truth in what Bayle, the ablest and 
acutest of all modern authors opposed to Christ- 
ianity, had said: " Prove to unbelievers the existence 
of evil spirits, and you will by that alone force them 
to concede all your dogmas." In any point of view, 
Christianity was pledged to assert the existence of 
Satan and his intervention in human affairs, for ac- 
cording to it, Christ was revealed from heaven and 
came into the world that he might destroy the devil 
and his works. If there was no devil, the mission 
of Christ had no motive, no object, and Christianity 
is a fable. 

Moreover, all Christians, whether Catholics assert- 
ing the infallibility and authority of the Church, or 
Protestants asserting simply the infallibility and au- 
thority of the Bible, were bound to assert the exist- 
ence of evil spirits, and the reality of demonic 
obsession and possession, of witchcraft, sorcery, and 
magic, in the common and opprobrious sense of the 
terms. As to Catholics, there could be no question. 
The Church plainly and unequivocally recognizes 
the existence of Satan, as may be gathered from the 
prayers and ceremonies of Baptism, as well as from 
the significance of the Sacrament itself; and not only 
his existence, but his power over the natural man, 
and even material objects. Thus when the priest, 
in administering the Sacrament, breathes gently 
three times in the face of the child, he exclaims, 



156 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" Exi ab eo, immunde spiritus, et da locum Spiritui 
Sancto Paraclito : " Go out of him, impure spirit, 
and give place to the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete; 
and also after the prayer Deus patrum nostrorum: 
" Exorcizo te, immunde spiritus, in nomine Pa- 
tris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, ut exeas, et recedas 
ab hoc famulo Dei. Ipse enim tibi imperat, male- 
dicte damnate qui pedibus super mare ambulavit, et 
Petro mergenti dextram porrexit. Ergo, maledicte 
diabole, recognosce sententiam tuam, et da hono- 
rs m Deo vivo et vero, da honorem Jesu Christo Filio 
ejus, et Spiritui Sancto ; et recede ab hoc famulo Dei, 
quia istum sibi Deus et Dominus noster Jesus 
Christus ad suam sanctam gratiam, et benedicti- 
onem, fontemque, Baptismatis vocari dignatus est." 
The candidate, before receiving baptism, is asked, 
" Dost thou renounce Satan ? " and answers, " I 
renounce him." "And all his works?" " I renounce 
them." "And all his pomps ? " "I renounce them." 
So, in blessing the salt which is used in administering 
the Sacrament, the priest says, " Exorcizo te, crea- 
tura salis, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis, et in 
charitate Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et in virtute Spi- 
ritus Sancti, exorcizo te per Deum vivum, per Deum 
verum, per Deum sanctum, &c. The whole proceeds 
on the supposition that Satan is to be expelled, dis- 
lodged, and the Holy Ghost to be placed, so to speak, 
in possession, or the grace of Jesus Christ is to be in- 
fused, so that the Holy Ghost shall henceforth dwell 
in the heart of the baptized, instead of Satan, who 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 157 

previously held dominion over it. The Church has 
also her exorcists, and her forms of exorcising of evil 
spirits. 

The Bible is no less clear and explicit on the sub- 
ject than the Church. It teaches that Satan, in the 
form of a serpent, seduced Eve to eat of the for- 
bidden fruit ; it relates the doings of the Egyptian 
magicians ; it forbids necromancy and evocation of 
the dead, and commands the Jews not to suffer a 
witch to live ; declares that all the gods of the Gen- 
tiles are devils ; tells us that the devil is the prince 
of this world, that he goeth about like a roaring 
lion, seeking whom he may devour ; bids us resist 
the devil and he will flee from us. St. Paul speaks 
of the prince and the powers of the air that besiege 
us, and against whom we must put on the whole 
armor of God, and do valiant battle. Moreover it 
speaks of demoniacs, or persons possessed with 
devils ; and among the marvellous works ascribed to 
Jesus Christ, is that of expelling demons, or casting 
out devils. All Christians, then, must admit that 
there is a devil, and that there are evil spirits, who 
may, and who do, interfere with men, harass them, 
and sometimes take literal possession of them. A 
recent French author, a sincere Christian believer, 
has felt this. " The question," he says, " at the 
Christian point of view, is by no means indifferent, 
but is, as it were, the mother question, tlje question 
of questions. It is no less than to determine whether 
the Bible and the Church have or have not been 
14 



158 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

really mistaken in one of their fundamental princi- 
ples. For a man filled with Christian desires, and 
cherishing at the same time a respect for evidence, 
the question is most grave. It touches the whole of 
faith, neither more nor less ; and as it will not do to 
admit in the sacred Scriptures, whose language is 
assumed to be inspired, what is called manners of 
speaking, or complaisances for the age, or remains of 
ignorance, we must be permitted to say, that if it 
were proved that the Bible in the time of Pharaoh 
mistook simple and miserable jugglers for real magi- 
cians, poor charlatans for enchanters, a few knavish 
and lying priests for the false gods of the Gentiles, 
simple mummeries for real evocations, delirious cata- 
leptics for spirits of Python, &c; if it were proved that 
Jesus Christ, in granting to his disciples the gift, and 
prescribing to them the rules, of expelling demons, 
mistook a fact of pure physiology ; if it were proved 
that the Church, in instituting exorcism, and pre- 
scribing for it precise and learned formulas, and, 
moreover, practising it for eighteen centuries, has 
been deceived during all that period, — we should 
feel that it is all over with Christianity; we should re- 
gard it as condemned, and hasten to renounce an au- 
thority so little judicious, and so little to be depended 
upon." Christians may, undoubtedly, dispute as to 
this or that particular case, and say that the evidence 
of demonic intervention, in this or that particular in- 
stance, is not conclusive ; but they cannot, without 
renouncing their faith, and becoming Sadducees, 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 159 

deny that such intervention is possible, or assert that 
it is improbable. They must concede its possibility, 
its probability, and its susceptibility of proof; and 
therefore when the evidence in any particular in- 
stance is sufficient to establish the reality of any 
other class of facts, they are bound, as reasonable 
beings, to admit it. To them there is, and can be no 
a priori difficulty, for they already believe in the 
reality of demonic agents adequate to produce the 
mysterious phenomena that they are called upon to 
accept. Hence, in those ages and countries in which 
nobody doubted Christianity, all men of science, 
physicians, magistrates, as well as the clergy and 
the people, readily admitted the demonic charac- 
ter of the phenomena like those produced in our 
day by mesmerism. 

But, if the belief in the reality of demonic in- 
tervention is integral in Christianity, the most ob- 
vious way of getting rid of Christianity and its 
restraints would be to deny that reality, and to ex- 
plain the phenomena commonly held as evidence of 
such intervention, on physiological and other natural 
principles. This has been the aim of science, espe- 
cially medical science, during the last two hundred 
years. This aim was adopted by the so-called wits 
and philosophers of the last century, and during this 
it has begun to be adopted by jurisprudence, and 
even to be acquiesced in by a large portion of pro- 
fessed Christian ministers. Literary men, like Sir 
Walter Scott ; founders of new sects, like the late 



160 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Hosea Ballou, of Boston ; neologist theologians every- 
where; and that " fourth estate," — journalism, have 
all combined to reason, explain, or laugh away, every 
thing pertaining to demonology, and to make the 
world believe that there is no devil, that evil spirits 
are only the creatures of a disordered brain, that 
apparitions or ghosts are only hallucinations, pos- 
session a peculiar kind of madness or insanity, and 
magic mere charlatanry or sleight-of-hand. All this, 
for an anti-Christian purpose, was admirable, since 
even the conservative portion of the clergy seemed 
to acquiesce in it. 

Nevertheless, this could suffice only to a certain 
extent. It might serve to emancipate the intelligent 
classes, but could not emancipate the people. The 
latter half of the eighteenth century — a century of 
anti-Christian light, philosophy, physical science, 
and materialism — was more distinguished for the 
mysterious phenomena, usually called demoniacal, 
than any other period since the Christianizing of the 
Roman Empire, with the single exception of the 
sixteenth century. Weishaupt, Mesmer, Saint-Mar- 
tin, and Cagliostro, did far more to produce the 
revolutions and convulsions of European society 
at the close of that century, than was done by 
Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Diderot, Mirabeau, 
and their associates. These men had no doubt a 
bad influence, but it was limited and feeble. It was 
not they who stirred up all classes, produced that 
revolutionary madness, that wild ungovernable fury 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 161 

of the people which we everywhere witnessed, and 
nowhere more than in Paris, the politest and most 
humane city in the world. The masses were pos- 
sessed, they were whirled aloft, were driven hither 
and thither, and onward in the terrible work of demo- 
lition, by a mysterious power they did not compre- 
hend, and by a force they were unable, having once 
yielded to it, to resist. 

You feel this in reading the history of those terri- 
ble events. It seems to you that Satan was unbound, 
and hell let loose. The historians of that old French 
Revolution, such as Mignet, Thiers, Lamartine, Car- 
lyle, all feel that there was something fatal in it, and 
have been led, at least all except the last, to defend 
it on the ground of fatalism. The Royalist and 
Catholic historians, who oppose it, seem never to 
seize its spirit. They declaim, denounce, find fault 
here, find fault there, now with this action and now 
with that, but they never explain any thing, solve 
any problem which comes up, and they leave the 
whole a mystery, or an enigma. 

The same phenomena, only on a reduced scale, 
were observable in the revolutions of 1848. Every- 
where there seemed to be an invisible power at work. 
Good, honest Father Bresciani, would explan all this 
by the Secret Societies. It is in vain. They did much, 
those secret societies ; but how explain the existence 
of those societies themselves, their horrible princi- 
ples, and the fidelity of their members in submitting 
to what they must know is a thousand times more 

14* 



162 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

oppressive than the institutions they are opposing? 
Tell me not that all these revolutionists were incar- 
nate devils ; that they cooly, and deliberately, from 
ordinary human motives and influences, planned and 
carried out their revolutionary enterprise. There 
were in their ranks men of the highest intelligence, 
the purest virtue, and the humanest feelings ; men, 
all of whose antecedents, whose tendencies, whose 
studies, professions, interests, and, I may say, con- 
victions, placed them in the ranks of the conserva- 
tives, were carried away by an invisible force, and 
shouted out, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and hurled 
the brand of the incendiary at temple, palace, and 
castle, which sheltered them, as if it was not they 
who did it, but a spirit that possessed them. Men 
caught the infection, they knew not how, they knew 
not when, they knew not where. The revolutionary 
spirit seemed to float in the air, as it undoubtedly 
did. 

Without Weishaupt, Mesmer, Saint- Martin, Cagli- 
ostro, you can never explain the revolution of 1789, 
and without me and my accomplices you can just 
as little explain those of 1848. There was at work in 
the former a power that the wits ridiculed, that science 
denied, philosophy disproved, and the clergy hardly 
dared assert. There was there the mighty power, 
whatever it be, which it is said once dared dispute 
the empire of heaven with the Omnipotent, and 
which all ages have called Satan, whether it is to be 
called evil with the Christian, or good with the phi- 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 163 

lanthropist, a person with the believer, or a primitive 
and elemental force with the mesmerist. France, 
Europe was mesmerized. So was it again in 1848, 
though with less terrible external convulsions. 

It is impossible to bring the great body of the peo- 
ple of any age to agree with our Voltarian philoso- 
phers — to be genuine Sadducees. In the first 
place, the writings of the philosophers and acade- 
micians do not reach the mass ; and, in the second 
place, there are constantly occurring phenomena 
which, in their apprehension, give the lie to Saddu- 
ceism. At the very time when the philosophers of 
pagan Rome were losing all faith in their national re- 
ligion, doubting almost the existence of the Divinity 
and the immortality of the soul, and laughing at 
augurs and soothsayers, the people were more su- 
perstitious than ever. It was then that magicians 
from Asia and Africa flocked to the Eternal City, 
and that Isiac, Bacchic, and other Eastern supersti- 
tions, with all their impurities and wild fanaticism, 
in comparison with which the national religion was 
pure, reasonable, and moral, were introduced, and 
spread as an epidemic; and the laws of the earlier 
emperors show how hard and how ineffectually 
authority labored to suppress them. 

The enemies of Christianity may accept the mys- 
terious phenomena, commonly regarded as diaboli- 
cal, and explain them and the miracles of the Bible 
and the alleged miracles of the Church on natural 
principles, and if they cannot explain them on any 



164 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

known natural principles, they may make them the 
basis of an induction of a new natural principle ; or, 
in other words, invent a natural principle to explain 
them, as Baron Reichenbach has done — a princi- 
ple, element, substance, or force, which he calls od. 
They may do this, or they may recognize their real 
spiritual and superhuman origin, but ascribe them 
to good, not to evil spirits, or what is the same 
thing, maintain that what the world has hitherto 
worshipped as good is evil, and what it has been 
taught to avoid as evil is good. That is, that Satan 
is God, and God is Satan. 

Swedenborg, in founding his New Jerusalem, 
or New Church, and Joe Smith, in founding the 
Church of the Latter Day Saints, as Mahomet in the 
seventh century, virtually adopted the latter course. 
Swedenborg became, in the later years of his life, a 
somnambulist, and could throw himself into the 
state which some mesmerists call sleep-waking, in 
which he w r as a clairvoyant, and had the power of 
second sight. He fancied himself a prophet, and 
capable of teaching angels as well as men. But he 
held the power he found himself able to exercise, to 
be good as well as supernatural. 

The same was the case with Joe Smith, an idle, 
shiftless lad, utterly incapable of conceiving, far less 
of executing the project of founding a new church. 
He was ignorant, illiterate, and weak, and of bad 
reputation. I knew his family, and even him also, 
in my boyhood, before he became a prophet. He 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 165 

was one of those persons in whose hand the divining- 
rod will operate, and he and others of his family 
spent much time in searching with the rod for wa- 
tercourses, minerals, and hidden treasures. Every 
mesmerizer would at once have recognized him as 
an impressible subject. He also could throw him- 
self, by artificial means, that of a peculiar kind of 
stone, which he called his Urim and Thummim, into 
the sleep-waking state, in which only would he or 
could he prophesy, In that state he seemed another 
man. Ordinarily his look was dull, and heavy, almost 
stupid ; his eye had an inexpressive glare, and he was 
rough, and rather profane. But the moment he con- 
sulted his Urim and Thummim, and the spirit was 
upon him, his face brightened up, his eye shone and 
sparkled as living fire, and he seemed instinct with a 
life and energy not his own. He was in those times, 
as one of his apostles assured me, " awful to behold." 
Much nonsense has been vented by the press 
about the origin of his Bible, or the Book of Mor- 
mon. The most ridiculous as well as the most 
current version of the affair is, that the book was 
originally written as a novel, by one Spalding, a 

I Presbyterian minister in Pennsylvania, and that Joe 
got hold of the manuscript and published it as a new 

! Bible. This version is refuted by a simple perusal 
of the book itself, which is too much and too little 
to have had such an origin. In his normal state, 
Joe Smith could never have written the more striking 
passages of the Book of Mormon ; and any man capa- 



166 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

ble of doing it, could never have written any thing 
so weak, silly, utterly unmeaning as the rest. No 
man ever dreamed of writing it as a novel, and who- 
ever had produced it in his normal state, would have 
made it either better in its feebler parts, or worse in 
its stronger passages. 

The origin of the book was explained to me by 
one of Joe's own elders, on the authority of the person 
who, as Joe's amanuensis, wrote it. From beginning 
to end, it was dictated by Joe himself, not translated 
from plates, as was generally alleged, but apparently 
from a peculiar stone, which he subsequently called 
his Urim and Thummim, and used in his divination. 
He placed the stone in his hat, which stood upon a 
table, and then taking a seat, he concealed his face 
in his hat above it, and commenced dictating in a 
sleep-waking state, under the influence of the mys- 
terious power that used or assisted him. I lived 
near the place where the book was produced. I 
had subsequently ample means of investigating the 
whole case, and I availed myself of them to the 
fullest extent. For a considerable time the Mormon 
prophets and elders were in the habit of visiting my 
house. They hoped to make me a convert, and they 
spoke to me with the utmost frankness and unre- 
serve. 

Numerous miracles, or what seemed to be mira- 
cles — such miracles as evil spirits have power to 
perform — and certain marvellous cures were alleged 
to be wrought by the prayers and laying on of the 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 167 

hands of the Mormon elders. Some of these were 
wrought on persons closely related and well known 
to me personally ; and I have heard others confirmed 
by persons of known intelligence and veracity, whose 
testimony was as conclusive for me as would have 
been my own personal observation. That there was 
a superhuman power employed in founding the Mor- 
mon church, cannot easily be doubted by any scien- 
tific and philosophic mind that has investigated the 
subject ; and just as little can a sober man doubt 
that the power employed was not Divine, and that 
Mormonism is literally the Synagogue of Satan. 

It matters little to the enemies of Christianity, 
whether the public deny altogether the marvellous 
phenomena heretofore regarded as diabolical, whether 
they accept and explain them by means of a primitive 
force or primordial law of nature, or simply ascribe 
them to Satanic invasion, provided it be held that 
Satan is a philanthropist, the friend and benefactor 
of the race, not the enemy ; for in any case, Chris- 
tianity is denied or undermined. But the purely 
sceptical theory answers only for the few, who, it is 
to be remarked, never see any of these marvellous 
phenomena, and who, if they did see them, might be 
led to embrace Christianity ; but it will never suffice 
for the many, and can never subserve the views of 
reformers who would operate upon the masses. 

It however makes no practical difference which 
of the other two hypotheses is adopted. For my- 
self, I in some sense adopted both, though, as I have 



168 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

said, I inclined to the naturalistic theory. But 
even then I had begun to contemplate an ulterior 
object, which might make it more convenient to 
adopt the latter hypothesis, for it might become ne- 
cessary to overthrow Christianity by the introduc- 
tion, apparently by supernatural means, of another 
religion — a religion in harmony with the wants of 
the flesh. It is impossible to overthrow a positive 
religion by a pure negation, or to get rid of Christ- 
ianity without substituting something positive in its 
place; for it is to be remarked, that sceptical ages 
are the most credulous, and that as Christian faith 
recedes, superstition advances. Hence we see in 
Scandinavia unmistakable evidences of a revival of 
the worship of Odin ; and only a short time since, 
the government had to adopt measures to repress it 
in the north of Norway. In many parts of Germany 
we see a decided tendency to revive the superstition 
which Christianity supplanted. When men have 
no longer religion, they take refuge in superstition ; 
and when they cease to worship God, they begin to 
worship the devil. The most interesting people to 
the Englishman Layard that he found in the East, 
were the devil-worshippers. 

But all this is premature. World-Reform, as I 
had sketched it to myself, had for its object un- 
bounded liberty, and was to be accomplished, on the 
one hand, by the overthrow of all existing govern- 
ments, and the complete disruption of all political 
and civil society ; and on the other, by the total de- 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 169 

molition of the Christian Church, and extirpation of 
the Christian religion. Of course it would not do 
to avow all this, for if I did, I should defeat my own 
purposes. Faith still lurked in many a heart; and 
the persuasion was very general, that some kind of 
government, some kind of political, civil, and even 
moral restraint was very generally entertained, even 
by those whom I must make my accomplices, and 
use as my tools. It was necessary to keep one's 
own counsel, or to confide it to the smallest number 
possible, To the world it would do to avow only 
the design of divorcing religion from politics, and of 
democratizing the church and society. This might 
be avowed without shocking the public at large. 
For this the public mind was in a measure prepared. 
A pious priest could be persuaded to advocate eccle- 
siastical democracy, as we have seen in the work of 
the excellent Rosmini, in the Five Wounds of the 
Church. 

A popularizing tendency among Catholics had 
been much encouraged by that powerful priest, the 
Abbe de La Mennais, and his enthusiastic asso- 
ciates. It is true, he had fallen under censure, and 
had been excommunicated, eo nomine, by Rome; 
but the party he formed, though disavowing him, 
still retained somewhat of his spirit, and followed 
his tendency. There was a growing party in France, 
even among the clergy, who wished to divorce the 
church from the state, and induce her to abandon 
the courts, and cement an intimate alliance with the 

15 



170 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

people, and lend her powerful influence to the demo- 
cratic movements of the day. They had much that 
was plausible in their favor. The royal and nobiliaire 
governments of Europe had always labored to con- 
vert the dignitaries of the church into courtiers, and 
to make her their tool for enslaving and fleecing the 
people. The greatest injury religion had ever re- 
ceived, it had received from courtier bishops, and 
the tyranny of the state over the church, equally 
fatal to her and to the people. The real interests of 
the church would therefore seem to demand of her 
to make common cause with the people against 
kings and aristocrats, and in favor of democratic 
institutions. This conviction was becoming very 
general among the more earnest and influential 
Catholic laymen. A corresponding conviction was 
also becoming general among the great mass of the 
Protestant populations. It was possible, then, to 
labor to democratize society without alarming reli- 
gious convictions ; nay, it was possible to enlist them 
to a great extent in the same work. Nobody, it is 
well known, helped us on more effectually in Eu- 
rope than many of the most distinguished among 
the Catholic clergy and laity. I need only mention 
Ventura and Gioberti in Italy, Montalembert, La- 
cordaire, Cormenin, Maret, and Archbishop Affre, in 
France. 

But, after all, great movements are never carried 
on by simple human means alone, and never get 
beyond brilliant theories unless inspired and sus- 



WORTH CONSIDERING. 171 

tained by a superhuman power, either from heaven 
or from hell. Christianity had taught us the weak- 
ness of human nature, and I found that weakness 
confirmed by experience. Between the power to 
conceive and to execute there is a distance. Men 
might form the most brilliant ideals, bring out the 
soundest, most attractive and perfect theories of 
reform, but it would avail nothing unless endued 
with a power not their own, to realize them in prac- 
tice. Here was the defect in the plan of Signor 
Urbini and Young Italy. It was skilfully devised, it 
had all of human wisdom on its side, but it was 
ideal, and had no power or energy to realize itself. 
No man lifteth himself by his own waistbands. 
Without the Whereon to stand, Archimedes, with all 
his mechanical contrivances, cannot move the world. 
It is necessary to have a support outside of man ; 
a source of power which is not human, and as the 
world would say, either Divine or Satanic, to be able 
to accomplish any thing. 

But had I not this very power in the agent I had 
been experimenting with ? What else was this mes- 
meric agent, whether a primitive, an elemental force 
of nature, or indeed a superhuman spirit endowed 
with intelligence and will ? Mr. Winslow was, in 
the main, right. Mesmeric clubs or circles must be 
formed on all points on which it is necessary to 
operate, and batteries be erected everywhere, so that 
anywhere, and at any moment, a mesmeric current 
may be sent instantaneously through the masses, 



172 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

infusing into them a superhuman resolution and 
energy, and making them stand up and march as 
one man. This, then, was the first thing to be 
done. I would erect my mesmeric batteries in every 
country in Europe, all connected by an invisible, but 
unbroken magnetic chain. 

This plan, as far as I thought it prudent, I forthwith 
communicated to Priscilla, without whose coopera- 
tion I could not carry it into effect. She approved 
it, and was ready to cooperate in any way I wished. 
The poor lady, I may remark, had no longer any 
will of her own. She had craved liberty, and had 
induced me to aid her in establishing it, and was 
now only my slave, bound to me in chains, which, 
struggle as she might, she could not. of herself alone, 
break or unfasten. 



173 



CHAPTER XII. 



A xMISSIONARY TOUR. 



The civil and political revolution I wished to 
effect, had apparently, to a considerable extent, been 
already effected in my own country, and the princi- 
pal theatre of my operations must be in the Old 
World. There is no doubt, that, at bottom, the 
American system does not differ from the European. 
It is the same system of repression, and, though it 
dispenses with kings and nobles, it asserts, with 
equal emphasis, the necessity of government, of law, 
and morals. The American, in making his revolution, 
had no socialistic dreams, no thought of resolving 
society into its original elements, denying all author- 
ity, rejecting all government, abolishing all religion 
and morality, and leaving every man to do freely 
whatever seems right in his own eyes, however 
wrong it may seem in those of his neighbor. The 
authors of the American Revolution, and founders of 
the American States and the American Union, were 
any thing but democrats in the present prevailing 
sense of the word. 

But the progress of ideas and events has so modi- 
fied the American system, and done so much to- 
wards restoring a perfect democracy, where the de- 

15* 



174 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

magogues have every thing their own way, that the 
chance of getting up any considerable revolutionary 
party, except to operate abroad, is not worth count- 
ing. Indeed, it is not necessary to hasten the march 
of things here, which is sufficiently rapid towards 
that point where democracy resolves itself either into 
complete individualism or into an absolute social 
despotism. I saw and felt this, and looked upon 
my own country as more ready to assist me in my 
philanthropic or Satanic efforts to revolutionize fo- 
reign countries than in need of similar efforts on its 
own account. 

Let me not, however, be misunderstood. Let me 
speak as I think and feel as I lie here confined to 
my room, from which I am to be removed only to 
my grave. I love not democracy, which I regard as 
from below, not from above ; but I love as little, per- 
haps much less, absolute or unlimited monarchy, — 
your Czarism, Caesarism, or Imperialism. I may 
think it unwise, wrong, wicked even, to attempt to 
overthrow by revolutionary violence, an absolute go- 
vernment, where it exists, and is not intolerable in 
practice, for the sake of introducing a republic, or 
even a constitutional monarchy ; but I hold no 
government a good one, where one man alone repre- 
sents the will and the majesty of the nation. I 
demand a government of estates, whenever that is 
practicable, but always a representative body, with 
real legislative power, capable of imposing real and 
effective restraints on the administration. I demand 



A MISSIONARY TOUR. 175 

for the nation the means of making known freely 
and effectively, within the limits of the moral law, 
its will. I demand freedom of discussion, delibera- 
tion, and decision. I demand the freedom of the 
press, temperately, and answerable for its abuse, 
(which, however, must be a real abuse ;) to criticize 
publicly the acts of political authority, to point out 
the defects of its policy, and to suggest measures 
for the public good. I demand a political constitu- 
tion in which the nation governs through a king or 
president, and parliament or legislative body or bodies. 
I am, what is sneered at by your imperialists, a par- 
liamentarian, a constitutionalist, and have no sym- 
pathy at all with the Csesarism of either France or 
Russia. I am no radical, no revolutionist, no friend 
of sedition, but I love a wise, prudent, well-regulated 
liberty, which leaves me all my power to do good, 
and therefore, necessarily, to some extent, even to do 
evil ; for if you so bind me by the civil power that I 
can do no evil, you take from me my manhood, 
make me an automaton, and deprive me of all 
power to do good and to acquire merit. Such is 
my political creed, and therefore let no man dare, be- 
cause I favor not now 7- the wild radical movements 
of the age, accuse me of being an enemy to liberty, 
or a worshipper of Caesarism, or what is called abso- 
lutism. 

Not seeing much to be done in my own country, 
I resolved to go abroad. I required Priscilla to make 
herself ready to accompany me, and to take her hus- 



176 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

band along with her. I know not whether this latter 
request pleased her or not. Woman is woman even 
when under the power of the Evil One; and that 
Priscilla loved me, and loved me madly, she hardly- 
pretended to conceal. I had, perhaps, loved her, too, 
for a moment, when I might do so innocently, and I 
loved her still as much as remained in me the power 
to love. But love or lust was not precisely my 
ruling passion, and I would as soon have taken 
another with me as Priscilla, could she have served 
my purpose as well. Even in my worst days I was 
as much repelled as attracted by a woman who 
could betray her husband's honor, and I always 
found a woman, mastered by her passion, and ready 
to give up all for love, as it is called, a troublesome 
rather than an agreeable companion. A man wishes 
to find in the woman of his affections a free soul, 
moral dignity, — a tender, loving heart, indeed, but 
with sufficient strength to stand alone. Lads and 
lasses in their teens have very false notions of love, 
and this is why love so seldom survives the honey- 
moon, and why so many complain of unrequited 
affection and broken hearts. 

But I could not do without Priscilla, and I wished 
her husband to accompany her to avoid scandal, and 
also to serve as manager, to take charge of all the 
arrangements in travelling, residing in one place, or 
in going from that to another, for which he was 
admirably adapted. I found him far more intelligent, 
far more of a man than I had been led to suspect 



A MISSIONARY TOUR. 177 

from his ready submission to petticoat government. 
Priscilla had entirely mistaken him, and might one 
day find him more than her master. 

In a couple of months our arrangements were 
made for the voyage to Europe, and for a longer or 
shorter residence abroad, as we should find it conve- 
nient. We embarked from Boston in one of the 
Cunard steamers for Liverpool, in May, 1843. We 
arrived at Liverpool after a pleasant passage of 
thirteen days, and as soon as we could land, and 
get our baggage through the custom-house, we de- 
parted for London, where we proposed stopping for 
some weeks. Let not the reader fear that I am 
about to inflict on him a journal of my travels in 
England and on the Continent. I did not go abroad 
as a curious traveller, to see other lands, and study 
the ways, manners, customs, institutions, laws, poli- 
tics, or religion of other nations. I went for a special 
object, and to that I confined myself. I could, if I 
would, tell very little more than I might have learned 
at home. My mission w r as not to observe and learn, 
but to do, and to prepare, and hasten on the grand 
movement I contemplated. 

I did not find in England much remaining to be 
done, or that I needed to do. I saw very few of her 
nobility, and I was not even once invited to dine 
with the Queen. The middle classes I found very 
much like my own countrymen, with very much the 
same culture, ideas, habits, and pursuits. I found, 
as at home, a large number of philanthropists, though 



178 THB SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

less thoroughgoing than ours, and narrower, and less 
comprehensive in their views. The common Eng- 
lishman is a little insular in his notions, and looks 
with disdain or pity on all who do noi happen to be 
natives of his own island world. The American is 
broad and expanded in his views, like his extended 
prairies and boundless forests. No pent up Utiea 
confines him : the globe is too small for him ; and 
he seriously contemplates forming a joint-stock 
company for the construction of a railroad to the 
moon. He thinks it will prove a good speculation. 
They are both proud, equally proud : but with the 
Englishman, pride assumes the form of haughtiness, 
or a low estimate of others: while with the Ameri- 
can, it assumes that of a conscious superiority to all 
the rest o{ creation. 

I did not see much chance of a reform or a demo- 
cratic revolution in England at present. True, she 
had at that time a very considerable body o( Chart- 
ists, and a numerous canaille* but these I counted 
for nothing. No revolution is ever made by the pro- 
letarian classes. Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, and the 
Jacquerie of France have proved that. No people 
can ever overthrow a government till the government 
betrays itself. In 1789, and in 1S4S, in every in- 
stance the government, with a few whiffs of grape- 
shot, might have dispersed the mob and suppressed 
the revolution. Qiam Deus vult pcrderc, prius dc- 
vnntat. 1 placed no reliance on the democracy o( 
England, yet I did not at all despair of her. She 



A MISSIONARY TOUR. 179 

had her Reform Bill of 1832, which in due time 
would be followed by another, and another, till her 
House of Commons would come to be regarded as 
representing population, not an estate. The exten- 
sion of her commerce and manufactures was com- 
pelling Sir Robert Peel, an able man, but a short- 
sighted statesman, to break up the protective system, 
establish free trade, and throw the power into the 
hands of the urban class. I did not need to mes- 
merize him ; he was doing my work as fast as it 
could be done with safety. Lord John Russell, Lord 
Palmerston, and their friends, I found had been 
visited before me. Mr. Gladstone needed a slight 
manipulation ; but I saw that he was an impressi- 
ble subject, and I foresaw that, when he became 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, I should have every 
reason to be satisfied with him. Lord Shaftesbury, 
then Lord Ashley, I found amply mesmerized by 
nature and inheritance, 

As to aid from England, in carrying on demo- 
cratic revolutions on the Continent, especially in 
Italy, if not in France, I might count on it with en- 
tire confidence, so far as beginning the movements 
and getting into trouble were concerned. But I 
thought possibly I might find her aid like the devil's, 
which suffices to help one into a scrape, but leaves 
him to get out the best way he can. She had no 
interest in helping the reformers to establish de- 
mocracy, but she was ready enough to throw the 
Continental states into confusion and anarchy. Hers 



180 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

has of late years been only a half-way genius. 
Nevertheless, I found in her a few choice spirits, and 
erected a mesmeric battery, which has since done 
some service to the cause I had at heart. Pris- 
cilla was still more successful among the philan- 
thropic ladies and women with whom she was able 
to communicate. We made sure, without much 
difficulty, of Exeter Hall. It was a battery already 
charged, and served, with skill and ability. 

We prepared an agent to visit Liverpool, Man- 
chester, Birmingham, and other considerable English 
towns, and, upon the whole, were very well satisfied 
with our mother country, and in good spirits left 
England for Dublin. We were received there with 
true Irish hospitality. The Liberator was then in 
his glory, and filled a large space in the eyes of the 
world. He had obtained the Catholic Relief Bill, 
and opened to his co-religionists of Great Britain and 
Ireland a political arena, and was now agitating for 
the legislative independence of his native country. 
A few months after he was arrested, and sentenced 
to a fine and a year's imprisonment, which virtually 
put an end to his movement. It broke his heart 
both as a patriot and as a lawyer. He received us 
very coolly at first, because we were Americans, and 
the Americans held negro slaves ; but on learning 
that we were abolitionists and philauthropists, he 
opened his large heart to us, and bid us a hundred 
thousand welcomes. We could not, however, make 
much of O'Connell. He was an admirable type of 



A MISSIONARY TOUR. 181 

the general Irish character, and not easily under- 
stood. He struck us as a bundle of opposing 
qualities, not usually thrown together in the same 
individual. A pious Catholic, he was surrounded 
by unbelievers, and the patron of the whole herd of 
philanthropists, whose chief aim was to rid the world 
of his religion ; a man of impulse, as capricious as a 
child, wily as a village attorney, and subtle as the most 
crafty lawyer, and acting always upon calculation ; 
a warm-hearted patriot, a genuine lover of his coun- 
try, yet with a sharp eye to the " rint," and leaving it 
doubtful to many minds whether he had any higher 
motives in what he did than to gain personal dis- 
tinction, and to elevate his family. He however 
interested us as the inventor of " peaceful agita- 
tion," an invention which could have been made 
only by an Irish lawyer, and it was as a "peaceful 
agitator" that we chose to think of him. We found 
his "peaceful agitation" might be turned to good 
account in the constitutional states of the Continent, 
and we took care to introduce it into France, when 
we visited that country, with what effect those who 
remember the "Reform Banquets" which preceded 
the Revolution of February, 1848, need not to be 
informed. 

From the Liberator, or, as we chose to call him, 
the Agitator, we went to meet the chiefs of the 
Young Ireland party, still apparently acting in har- 
mony with him. We formed no great expectations 
of them. They talked too much, and made too 
16 



182 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

much noise and bluster. We found them in excel- 
lent dispositions, but too unsubstantial for our pur- 
pose. They were all blaze, and no heat. The devil, 
having no creative power, could not himself make 
much of them, and gave them up in despair. Hence 
their miserable failure four years later at Slievna- 
mon. Indeed, Ireland was a country by no means 
to our philanthropic and reforming purpose, and we 
made no account of her in preparing our revolu- 
tionary movements. We however erected a small 
battery in the west, with a view to some ulterior 
operations, and which we left in charge of Exeter 
Hall. It has produced some temporary effect ; but 
inasmuch as it has served to arouse the Popish 
bishops and clergy to a more diligent discharge of 
their duties, in regard to the religious and moral in- 
struction of the people in that hitherto somewhat 
neglected district, it is not certain but it will, in the 
long run, produce an effect the reverse of that in- 
tended. Rome, too, has sent a man after her own 
heart to look after the Irish Church, the present 
Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland; so 
the philanthropists have not much to hope from Ire- 
land. Pat will sometimes live and talk as an unbe- 
liever, but he has a singular propensity to die a 
Christian. 

From Ireland we visited Edinburgh, Glasgow, the 
Highlands, and the Hebrides — the Highlands and 
the Hebrides, for the purpose of making observations 
on the "second sight" of the natives. We were 



A MISSIONARY TOUR. 183 

much pleased with Scotland. The Scottish charac- 
ter has many admirable features, and there is not 
upon the whole a finer race in Europe than the 
Scotch, when unperverted. We found nothing to 
do among them. There was no need of mesmer- 
izing them. Their own " ingenuum fervidum" a sort 
of permanent mesmerization, was amply sufficient 
for all our purposes. Besides, there seemed to be a 
natural and ample supply of the odic fluid in her 
own mountains and glens, which were still peopled 
by brownies and fairies. 



184 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 



Finding all right in Scotland, we visited Norway, 
Sweden, and Denmark, the ancient Scandinavia, 
the land of Odin, and home of the most strongly- 
marked devil-worship to be found in history. With 
all my study and experiments, I was far below many 
mesmerizers I found among the natives of these 
countries. I found operative the spirit of the old 
Vikings, the Berserkirs, and the Sagas, which had 
made the Norsemen the nobility of Europe, and the 
plunderers of every maritime district, which had 
precipitated Gustavus Adolphus upon the Empire 
to perish at Lutzen, and Charles the Twelfth upon 
Russian Peter, to meet his fate at Pultowa. It still 
survives, hardly restrained by the Christian profes- 
sion, and capable of being kindled up anew, and set 
to work in all its pristine vigor. Of these northern 
countries I felt sure, and that I might safely leave 
them to themselves. 

We passed on to St. Petersburg, and had an inter- 
view with the Czar of all the Russias. We found him 
one of the noblest-looking men in Europe, simple, 
affable, intellectual, and well-informed. He treated 
us with distinction on account of our country, with 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 185 

which he said he and his predecessors had always 
been on friendly terms, and whose unexampled pros- 
perity he saw with pleasure. He could understand 
our politics, and respected them, for they were based 
on a principle — -a wrong principle he believed — 
nevertheless a principle, consistently carried out. He 
believed the Russian system, under which one man 
governs, is far preferable to ours, under which all 
govern. However, we might honestly disagree with 
him. Apparently he was the most bitter as well as 
the most powerful enemy of our revolutionary plans ; 
but we did not despair of him. He seemed wedded 
to the stats quo ; but we felt that when once we had 
destroyed that, we could make him and his legions 
do our work, for we found him a sort of Pope 
in his own dominions, and not indisposed to sup- 
plant the Pope of Rome. He was, if a friend to 
Papacy, the enemy of the real Pope, and that was 
enough for us. 

The Czar, foreseeing the revolutionary movements 
which would be attempted in Western Europe, had 
for the moment ceased to favor the Panslavic move- 
ment which he previously set on foot ; but we saw 
that the impulse had been given, and that ultimately 
he must return to it, go on wdth it, or be swept away 
by it. This Panslavic movement to unite the whole 
Slavic race, numbering upwards of seventy mil- 
lions, and holding a territory capable of supporting 
twice, if not three times that number of inhabitants, 
under one Slavic government, imperial or republi- 

16* 



186 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

can, would operate, we thought, altogether in our 
favor; for it would ruin Austria, the chief support 
of the Papacy, and give a decided predominance to 
the anti-Catholic powers throughout all Europe. 
We therefore favored it, and took care to form va- 
rious circles in support of it, as we traversed the 
Empire from St. Petersburg to Moscow, Ninji No- 
vogorod, Little Russia, to the Black Sea ; and also, 
among the Serbs of Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, in Eu- 
ropean Turkey; Transylvania, the Banat, Croatia, 
Slavonia, and Bohemia, in the Austrian Empire. 

We visited, on leaving Russia and Slavic Turkey, 
the kingdom of Hungary. There we found Kos- 
suth, and he answered our purpose. Priscilla formed 
a circle among the Magyar ladies, but it was quite 
unnecessary. I initiated Kossuth into my plan, and 
laid my hand on his head, and breathed into his 
mouth, and left him to take care of the Magyar 
race. Highly delighted, we passed from Presburg 
to Vienna, where we stayed some weeks. The Im- 
perial family and high aristocracy were proof against 
our arts, but we found the burghers, the employes of 
the government, and especially the students of the 
University, quite impressible, and we charged them 
for a revolution. 

From Vienna we passed through Cracow to War- 
saw, and from Warsaw we went to Berlin. In all 
these places we found every thing favorable. We 
passed through the capitals of several of the smaller 
German States and principalities, stopped a few 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 187 

days in the Grand Duchy of Baden, and then has- 
tened to take up our residence at Geneva, in Switzer- 
land. We did not visit Munich, but sent Lola 
Montes there, whom Priscilla, at my order, had pre- 
pared. She did very well, but not so well as I ex- 
pected. She used her extraordinary powers too 
much for her own aggrandizement. She should 
never have suffered King Louis to have made her a 
countess. She was too vain and ostentatious. 

We arrived in Geneva, late in the autumn of 
1844, and made it our principal residence till the 
spring of 1846. We had made no prolonged stay 
in Poland, for we found the Poles already mesmer- 
ized. Cold and callous as I had become, I yet had 
a tear for poor Poland, and, let my conservative 
brethren say what they will, I still weep her fate. I 
am not affected by the prevailing Russo-phobia, and 
in the contest now raging between Russia and the 
Western powers, I believe that she has the advan- 
tage on the score of justice, though now that they 
have been mad and foolish enough to wage war 
against her, the interests of Europe perhaps demand 
their success ; for if they fail, she becomes quite too 
powerful. There are traits in the Russian character 
I like, but I can never forgive the murder of Poland. 
Catherine, Frederic, and Maria Theresa, in that 
crime opened the way to modern revolutions, and 
deprived crowned heads, to a powerful extent, of the 
sympathy of the friends of justice and order. The 
Poles had their faults, great and grievous, but the 



188 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

I 

partition of their kingdom by the three powers of 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, was a crime that no 
faults could justify, and, what some would say is 
worse, a political blunder. Since then, the Polish 
nobles have been, and will long continue to be, their 
evil genius. 

We did not remain long in Germany, for we 
found most of the German states already prepared, 
and already in close communication, after the Ger- 
man fashion, with the powers of the air. The Ger- 
man genius is mystic, and plunges either into the 
profound est depths of Christian mysticism, which 
unites the soul with God, or into the demoniacal 
mysticism, which unites it in strictest union with 
Satan. The German, whatever his efforts, can never 
make himself a pure rationalist. He has too much 
religiosity for that. He must worship, and when he 
worships not God, he worships the devil, and either 
through the elevating power of the Holy Ghost rises 
to heaven, or, through the depressing power of Satan, 
sinks to hell. You never find him standing on the 
simple plane of human nature, and he is always 
either superhumanly good or superhumanly wicked. 
For an Englishman, an American, an Irishman, there 
is a medium, a possibility of compromise, a sort of 
split-the-difference character — now saying, good 
Lord, and now saying, " good devil," — a via media 
genius, which offends both extremes, and satisfies 
nobody. I like the German genius better. If the 
Lord be God, then serve him, if Baal be God, then 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 189 

in Satan's name serve Baal. Be either cold or hot, 
not lukewarm. Ernst ist das Leben is the German's 
motto, and whatever he proposes to do, whether 
good or evil, he sets about it in downright earnest. 
There is more to hope, and more to fear from the 
German or Teutonic race than any other in Europe, 
for it has very little of the Italian and French, or 
the English and American frivolezza, that curse of 
modern society. 

At Geneva we met Mazzini, a remarkable man, 
in his way, the very genius of intrigue, and wholly 
sold to the devil. We also met there the Abbate 
Gioberti, a Piedmontese, who had been exiled as a 
liberal by the government of Carlo Alberto, the ci- 
devant Carbonaro. He was a Catholic priest, and 
though under the censure of the government, and 
distrusted by the Jesuits, nay, violently opposed by 
them, he had not at that time, so far as I could 
learn, fallen under the censure of his church. He 
was one of the ablest men we met in our Euro- 
pean travels, and a fine specimen of the higher 
order of Italian genius. Though comparatively 
young, not much over forty, he was deeply and 
solidly learned, and as a writer on political and phi- 
losophical subjects, had, saying nothing of his pecu- 
liar views, no superior, and hardly an equal in all 
Italy, if indeed in all Europe. 

Gioberti affected to be an Ultramontane, a rigid 
Catholic, a thoroughgoing Papist ; yet his sympa- 
thies were with the liberal or revolutionary party. 



190 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

He was, first of all, an Italian, and held that the 
moral, civil, and political primacy of the world be- 
longed to Italy, and it was because God had, from 
remote ages, given to her this primacy, that the 
Papal chair was established at Rome. The primacy 
belonged to the successors of St. Peter in their 
quality of Roman pontiffs, who, as such, were herit- 
ors of the Italian primato. The Papal authority 
was founded in divine right, but mediately through 
the divine right of the Italians as heritors of the old 
Roman sacerdocy, and Italo- Greek civilization. Ac- 
cording to him, the Papacy did not so much con- 
tinue the synagogue, as the old Roman priesthood, 
or rather, the Jewish and Pagan priesthoods both 
meet and become one in the Papacy — the summit 
and representative of the Christian priesthood. 

His plan, therefore, was, first of all, Italian unity, 
not the republican or democratic unity of Mazzini 
and Young Italy, nor yet a monarchical unity, under 
a purely secular prince ; but a federative union under 
the moderatorship of the Pope, made one in the 
Papacy. The Romans, he held, at least from the 
time of Numa, had been an armed priesthood, 
and should now resume, under the Pope, their old 
character and mission. Italy thus united, thus or- 
ganized, under the moderatorship of the Pope, could 
reassert her primacy, and carry on the work of civil- 
ization. With her twenty-five millions of inha- 
bitants, the natural superiority of her genius, the 
moral weight of the Papacy, her peculiar geographi- 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 191 

cal position, and the productiveness of her soil, she 
would be impregnable to attack, and more than able 
to cope single-handed with any one of the great 
European powers. In other words, he sought for 
the Pope and the Italians what Nicholas is supposed 
to seek for the Czar and the Russians. 

The rock on which he split, and I told him so at 
the time, was in assuming the intrinsic compati- 
bility of Gentilism and Christianity. He wished 
to combine the antique pagan and the modern 
Christian spirit, and to train youth to be devout 
Catholics, and yet, at the same time, proud, daring, 
and energetic Gentiles. He did not agree at all with 
the Abbe Gaume and the party laboring to exclude 
the Greek and Roman classics from our colleges and 
universities ; he had no very high opinion of the 
fathers of the Church, with the exception of St. 
Augustine, and no patience with the mediaeval 
knights and doctors. He waged unrelenting war 
on the philosophy taught by the Jesuits, and, in- 
deed, upon the whole system of education pursued 
by those renowned religious religions, which, he con- 
tended, had practically emasculated the European 
mind, deprived it of all depth and originality, and of 
all free and vigorous activity. Its effect had been 
to produce, in nearly all Europe, a universal frivo- 
lezza, or frivolity of thought and action. 

But he forgot to note, that Gentilism and Christ- 
ianity are directly opposed one to the other. Christ- 
ianity educates for heaven, Gentilism for earth ; the 



192 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

former is based on pride, the latter on humility ; the 
one exalts God, the other exalts man. The Gospel 
teaches us to despise what Gentilism honors, and to 
honor what Gentilism despises, and to possess the 
world by rising above it, and trampling it under our 
feet. A Christian discipline has for its end, to mor- 
tify the flesh, and to make men live as if dead to 
the world, and to overcome the world by dying, 
not by slaying, by relying on the wisdom and power 
of God, not on their own. Gentile discipline trains 
men primarily for the world, develops the nobility of 
pride, not the higher nobility of humility — trains 
men to act, by their own wisdom and sagacity, on 
men, to be artful and overreaching statesnrien, in- 
trepid soldiers, able and invincible commanders. It 
is obvious to every one that these two systems can 
never be combined, and made to work harmoniously 
together. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. 

Taking the Gentile standard, taking a Fabricius, a 
Scipio, a Cato, a Caesar, instead of a St. Bruno or a 
St. Francis, of Assisium, as a model man ; or a Cor- 
nelia instead of Santa Clara or a Santa Theresa, for 
a model woman, there can be no doubt of the vast 
superiority of ancient Gentilism over modern Catho- 
licity, or even Christianity itself, and, in this sense, the 
devout Irishman was right when he said, " Religion 
has been the ruin of us," and more especially as it 
regards Catholics. Non-Catholics, as to the empire 
of this world, display a wisdom, an energy, and a 
decision, which you seldom find in strictly Catholic 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 193 

states, and the only cases in which so-called Catho- 
lic states approach them, is when they put their 
religion in their pocket, war on the Pope, or for 
purely secular ends, on purely earthly principles. 
The French Republic, in putting an end to the 
Mazzinian Reign of Terror, and restoring Pius the 
Ninth to his temporal estates, professed no religious 
motives, and would have failed if it had. It acted 
from worldly policy, and avowedly for the purpose 
of watching Austria and maintaining French influ- 
ence in the Peninsula. 

The question is not as Gioberti conceives it ; it is 
not a question of the fusion of Christian and Gen- 
tile virtues, but a question between Gentilism and 
Christianity itself. It is not how to train our youth 
to be great, noble, energetic, according to the Italo- 
Greek standard, but whether we are or are not to be 
Christians. If Christianity be true, there can be no 
question that our youth should be trained for heaven 
and not for the world, and taught to be meek, hum- 
ble, self-denying, unworldly — to die to the world, 
and live only to God — to prepare themselves for 
dying and living eternally hereafter in heaven. If 
i so trained, they will not exhibit those traits of cha- 
racter which you so much admire in the great men of 
pagan antiquity ; they will meditate when you will 
j think they should act, pray when you would have 
I them fight, and run to the church when you would 
| have them run against the enemy. But, at the same 
time, if Christianity be true, there can be no ques- 
17 



194 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

tion that the management of earthly affairs on 
Christian principles and for a Christian end, would 
be decidedly for the interests of society as well as 
for the salvation of the soul. " Seek first the king- 
dom of God and his justice, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." 

There is an innate and irreconcilable antagonism 
between Italo- Greek Gentilism and Christianity. 
According to Christianity, the world by wisdom 
knows not God ; and the whole economy of the 
Gospel is undeniably to discard the wisdom of this 
world, and to rely solely on the wisdom from above, 
to trust not ourselves, but God alone. The Gos- 
pel reverses all the maxims of Gentile wisdom, and 
blesses what it curses, and curses what it blesses. 
Gentilism had said, Blessed are the proud, the dis- 
tinguished, they who are honored and abound in 
this world's goods ; the Gospel says, Blessed are the 
poor in spirit, that is, they who are humble, lowly- 
minded, and despise riches and honors. Gentilism 
had said, Blessed are they who are quick to resent 
and avenge their real or imaginary wrongs ; the 
Gospel says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall in- 
herit the land. The former had said, Blessed are 
they that rejoice ; the latter says, Blessed are they 
that mourn. Gentilism had said, Blessed are they 
who thirst for fame, for honor, power, and who live 
in luxury, who eat, drink, and are merry ; the Gos- 
pel says, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst 
after justice, Blessed are the merciful, and Blessed 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 195 

are the clean of heart. Gentilism had said, Blessed 
is the man who delights in arms, whom no one dares 
attack, whom none slander, revile, or persecute, and 
who, by his force, craft, or wisdom, has triumphed 
over all his enemies, and subjugated them to his 
w 7 ill ; the Gospel says, Blessed are the peacemakers, 
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' 
sake, Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and 
persecute you. and say all manner of evil against 
you falsely for my sake : rejoice and be exceeding 
glad, for great is your reward in heaven. 

The principle of Christianity is humility, meek- 
ness, gentleness, forgiveness of injuries, love of ene- 
mies, self-denial, detachment from the world, and a 
delight in living, suffering, and dying for the glory 
of the cross. In every respect, the principle of Gen- 
tilism is the direct contradictory. Look at the Gos- 
pel as you will, and its direct denial of heathenism 
everywhere strikes you. Its Author came into the 
world not in the pride, pomp, and power of an earth- 
born majesty. He came in the form of a servant, a 
slave, the reputed son of a poor carpenter, at whose 
craft he worked with his own hands. The foxes of 
the earth have holes, and the fowls of the air have 
nests, but poorer than they, he had not where to lay 
his head. Of the rich, the proud, the great, and 
honored, none were with him. His disciples were poor 
fishermen and publicans. He sought and accepted 
no earthly honors ; and when the people, in a fit of 
momentary enthusiasm, would make him perforce 



196 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

their king, he withdrew, retired into the mountains, 
concealed himself, and prayed to his Father. When 
betrayed by one of his followers, and delivered into 
the hands of his enemies, he made no resistance, 
and permitted none to be made. He patiently en- 
dures insults, mockeries, and revilings, and opens 
not his mouth in his defence, when confronted with 
his accusers before the bar of Pilate, but meekly 
submits to the unjust sentence pronounced against 
him, suffers himself to be led unresistingly, bearing 
his cross, to the place of execution, and to be cruci- 
fied between two thieves. 

Here is the whole spirit, the whole economy of 
Christianity. If Christianity be from God, this means 
something, and proves that if Christians are sincere 
and in earnest, they cannot adopt or even value the 
wisdom of the world ; and it must always be true, 
that the children of this world are wiser in their 
generation than the children of light. Concede the 
Gospel to be true, and you must own that Christian 
asceticism is the highest wisdom, and Gentile wisdom, 
or the wisdom of this world, the sublimest foolish- 
ness. This St. Paul well understood, and hence he 
says, " We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a 
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but 
to them that are called, Jews and Greeks, Christ 
the power of God, and the wisdom of God. The 
foolish things of the world hath God chosen to con- 
found the wise, and the weak things of the world 
hath God chosen that he may confound the strong ; 



THE TOUR CONTINUED. 197 

and base things of the world, and things contempti- 
ble hath God chosen, and the things that are not, 
that he might bring to nought the things which 
are." 

There is no denying this, and hence the error of 
Gioberti. He would be both a Christian priest and a 
Gentile philosopher, at once a disciple of the Gospel 
and of the Portico, and he labored with an ability and 
a subtlety to demonstrate by means of a philosophy, 
considered apart from the use he made of it, worthy 
of profound esteem, that this was not only possible, 
but demanded by the deepest and truest principles 
of ontological science. I do not think that he was 
at that time an unbeliever, or that he entertained 
any doubts of the religion he professed. But he 
had little of the sacerdotal character or the Christian 
spirit, and I think he was disgusted with what he 
considered the weakness, tameness, abjectness, the 
frivolezza of the Catholic populations of France and 
Italy, and out of patience with seeing them crouch- 
ing before the haughty infidel, and the domineer- 
ing heretic or schismatic. He wished to see them 
men, men of lofty and daring souls, scorning to be 
trampled on, and indignantly hurling back the in- 
vading hosts of barbarians, and boldly and triumph- 
antly asserting the proud prerogatives which be- 
long to them as possessors and guardians of the 
truth of God. He was right after the wisdom of 
men, but wrong after the wisdom of God, if Christ- 
ianity is our standard, and was animated by the spirit 

17* 



198 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

of Gentilism, not by the spirit of the Gospel. He 
failed, for he was too pagan for a Christian, and too 
Christian for a pagan. 

The remedy, if remedy is needed, is the return of 
modern society to real, earnest, living faith in the 
Gospel. The age is frivolous, because it is educated 
to be Christian, and is at heart unbelieving. It is 
not heresy or schism that needs now to be attacked, 
but unbelief — a moral and intellectual scepticism, 
which books and schools do not teach us to attack 
successfully. Here schoolmen, men of routine, with 
their probos, respondeos, and objectiones solvunturs, 
stand us in poor stead. Exquisite polish, gracefully- 
turned periods, charming pleasantries, pretty con- 
ceits, and soft, sweet sentimentality for boys and 
girls in their teens, will stand us in just as little. It 
is necessary to abandon routine, the easy habit of 
speaking memoriter, and learn to think, to master, not 
merely repeat, what others have said, but to master 
for ourselves the principles involved, and to speak out 
in a tone of strong, impassioned reasoning, in free, 
bold, and energetic language, in defence of the Gos- 
pel itself. 



199 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 

In June, 1846, the death of Gregory the Sixteenth, 
and the election of Cardinal Mastai and his eleva- 
tion to the Papacy, under the name of Pius the 
Ninth, summoned us to Rome, the Eternal city. I 
felt a momentary grief, as I saw the mouldering 
ruins of pagan Rome, the ancient capital of Gen- 
tilism, and felt indignation at beholding the diminu- 
tive Rome that had supplanted it; but 1 felt sure 
that the old gods lingered still in those ruins of the 
Capitoline and Palatine hills, and that the time was 
drawing near when we might evoke Jupiter Tonans 
and the fiery Mars, and the Goddess of Victory, from 
their slumber of centuries; revive the old Roman 
spirit, and reestablish the old Republic, so long tri- 
umphed over by the barbarism of the cross. Never 
before had I felt how thoroughly alienated from the 
Christian world, and assimilated in my feelings to 
the old Gentile world I had become. I was in the 
capital of the Christian world, the centre of Chris- 
tian art, and of the most glorious Christian associa- 
tions for tw r o thousand years, and my heart was 
touched only at sight of the monuments of pagan 



200 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

antiquity, which time and the still more destructive 
hand of man had spared. 

But we had no leisure for sight-seeing, and still 
less for sentimentalizing over the ruins of that stupen- 
dous superstition of which Rome was the capital, 
and which had gradually supplanted the patriarchal 
Christianity, only slightly corrupted, of the primitive 
Romans. The superficial politicians, Catholic and 
non- Catholic, regard the Papacy as comparatively of 
little political or social significancy in our times; 
but whoever looks a little below the surface of things, 
knows very w r ell that the Pope, though w T eak as to 
his temporal states, is not only the oldest but the 
most influential sovereign in Europe. The death of 
one Pope and the accession of another, is an event 
which reverberates through the whole civilized world; 
and the policy of the sovereign pontiff, the feeble 
old man of the Vatican, with hardly a regiment of 
guards, has not seldom the preponderating weight in 
the councils of princes, although unseen, unrecog- 
nized — so much the more inexplicable, as there no 
longer remains a truly Catholic government on the 
globe, and not a Catholic nation in whose heart lives 
and breathes the old Catholic faith. Not a nation 
in Europe would, to-day, for the sake of religion 
alone, rush to the assistance of the Pope; yet the 
Papacy is everywhere, and not a court in Europe 
but trembles when it thinks of the Pope, cveu weak 
and unsupported as he is. 

All the Liberals throughout the world held a jubi- 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 201 

lee as soon as they heard of the death of the old 
Pope, .who had, no one could tell how, held them in 
check. The whole world seemed to have been sudden- 
ly relieved of an invisible burden, and bounded with 
a wild and frantic joy. The good time that had been 
a-coming, now could come. This joy grew wilder 
and more frantic still, when it was known that Car- 
dinal Mastai was the new Pope. He was known to 
be gentle and humane, kind-hearted and pious, and 
suspected of leaning to liberal views, and of being 
a Giobertian ; and nobody doubted that he would 
attempt a policy the reverse of Gregory's. We, w T ho 
were in the secret, knew that he was not the choice 
of Austria, and had no doubt that he would incline 
to France, and follow, to no inconsiderable extent, 
the advice of Count Rossi, the French Ambassador, 
and one of our friends. 

At that time Guizot was at the head of the go- 
vernment of France under Louis Philippe, a Pro- 
testant and a quasi-conservative statesman, but with 
many sympathies with the European Liberals. He 
believed, or professed to believe, that a change in the 
institutions of the monarchical states in Europe, 
giving the people a moderate share in the govern- 
ment, was demanded by the exigencies of European 
society, and if freely offered by authority, and not 
given as a concession to the people in arms to effect 
it, would be a wise and beneficial public measure, and 
in an eminent degree politic too, as it would tend to 
extract the point from the declamations of the radi- 



202 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

cals, and prevent, or at least indefinitely postpone, the 
revolution with which all Western and Central Eu- 
rope was threatened. He had urged this policy 
upon Prussia, perhaps upon Austria, certainly upon 
the smaller German states which had not yet adopted 
the constitutional regime, and upon the Pope and the 
other Italian princes. 

We were perfectly well aware of Guizot's policy, 
and knew equally well how to turn it to our account. 
Your doctrinaire, juste-milieu, or via-media states- 
men, who follow expediency, and govern without 
principle, are generally regarded as wise, prudent, 
and eminently practical, but they are among the 
shortest-sighted mortals to be encountered, and are 
as miserable humbugs as the Genevan banker, M. 
Necker, who could never understand that govern- 
ment was any thing more than a question of finance, 
or its administration any thing more than the admi- 
nistration of a joint-stock bank. When there is no 
serious discontent on the part of subjects, and not 
the least danger of revolution or insurrection, author- 
rity may modify without danger, immediate danger 
at least, the constitution, in favor of popular power, 
as the English government did in 1832 ; but when 
there is grave discontent, with or without just cause, 
and a secret conspiracy is forming in behalf of liberal 
or popular institutions, nothing is less wise or states- 
manlike than for authority to make popular conces- 
sions with a view of forestalling and disarming it. 
The disaffected attribute such concessions solely to 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 203 

the weakness and fears of the government, and only- 
rise in their demands, and conspire with the more 
energy and courage. 

The government, in times of general discontent, 
as was the case in Europe from 1839 to 1848, should 
either concede all and abdicate itself, or concede 
nothing, because, if it is to defend itself it needs all 
its prerogatives and the concentration of all its pow- 
ers. The advice of Guizot was fitted only to weaken 
the powers that entertained it, and to render them, in 
the hour of trial, timid and undecided ; and it is only 
where authority is timid, hesitating, and undecided, 
that a popular revolution can ever succeed. The 
only wise and even merciful way in such times is, 
to make, on the first outbreak, a free use of grape- 
shot and the bayonet. There will be no second out- 
break, however powerful or well concerted the con- 
spiracy may have been. Napoleon understood this, 
and his nephew understands it, also, tolerably well. 
No man understands it better than Nicholas, Auto- 
crat of all the Russias, although his single unarmed 
presence is ordinarily all that is necessary to quell 
an insurrection in his capital. 

There is no doubt that Pius the Ninth, during the 
first days of his pontificate, followed, in temporal 
matters, the advice of the French government, 
which, as far as I have been able to learn, never, 
since Philip the Fair, has been guilty of giving the 
Pontiff advice not to his own hurt. France advised 
the fatal amnesty and some sort of quasi-popular 



204 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

institutions. The former was granted, the latter were 
promised, and the world was made to believe that for 
once it had a liberal Pope. . There was nothing heard 
but Evviva Pio Nono ! throughout Rome, Italy, 
France, England, and the United States. Radicals, 
Infidels, Protestants, and even the Grand Turk, 
united in one grand chorus of loud and prolonged 
exultation. It seemed, to those who saw only the ex- 
ternal manifestation, that all hostility to the Papacy 
had ceased, and that all the world were on the eve 
of becoming Papists. Rome became one perpetual 
festival. Songs, hymns, processions, benedictions, 
speeches, addresses, congratulations, became the 
regular order of the day. Multitudes of Catholics, 
honest, simple souls, really felt that the day of 
heresy and schism, of conflict and trial, for the 
Church, was over. Some shrewd old cardinals 
at Rome took their pinch of snuff, shrugged their 
shoulders, and retired to their palaces. We, who 
knew what agencies were at work, laughed in our 
sleeve, and, with all the chiefs of the liberal party, 
called upon all the powers which we had prepared, 
visible and invisible, to aid in increasing the general 
intoxication, not doubting but the Papacy was at 
its last gasp. For we felt sure that if, by flattery, 
by enthusiasm, by loud, long, and reiterated shouts 
of Evviva Pio Nono ! we could get the Pope fairly to 
enter the path of reform, or what was, we supposed ? 
the same thing for us, make the Catholic world 
believe he had entered it, it was all over with the 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 205 

Papacy, therefore with Christianity, law, and social 
order. 

No doubt some of the enthusiasm manifested was 
real, but a great deal of it was feigned, for the precise 
purpose of imposing upon the public. We were not 
ourselves for a moment deceived. We felt sure that 
Mastai was a genuine Pope, that he could hardly be 
deceived by the demonstrations which must have 
been painful to him ; which, in fact, gave him no 
rest, and which, under pretence of unbounded devo- 
tion to him, were becoming unmanageable, secretly 
undermining his throne, and growing into a real con- 
spiracy against his freedom of action. We knew 
well there must come a point beyond which he could 
make no further concession, and our plan was to get 
the Catholic populations of Europe so committed to 
the cause we pretended he favored, that when that 
point was reached, we could turn the popular enthu- 
siasm against him, and he find himself disarmed 
and powerless to resist it. In this it is well known 
that we fully succeeded. 

We should not have gone so far, and succeeded 
so rapidly, perhaps, had we not been aided by Eng- 
lish politics. Lord John Russell and Lord Palmers- 
ton did not disappoint my expectations. At the 
time of our visit to Rome, the government of Louis 
Philippe was in the zenith of its glory. The wily 
monarch seemed to have fully confirmed his throne, 
and his prime minister was successful in urging upon 
a large number of princes constitutional reforms, and 
18 



206 



THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 



it seemed likely, for a moment, that the revolutionary- 
party would spend its fury harmlessly under the lead 
of the sovereigns themselves. But he deeply offended 
England by the Spanish match, the marriage of the 
Due de Montpensier with an Infanta of Spain. By 
this marriage, he seemed to have completed his circle 
of alliances, and to have made himself too powerful 
for English politics, and was rendering himself still 
more so by the constitutional reforms he was urging 
upon German and Italian princes. It was necessary 
to thwart him, and put an end to his illegitimate 
reign. Lord Minto was despatched, and other agents 
instructed to confer with the chiefs of the revolution- 
ary party in Italy, and also in France, and encourage 
them to insist on reforms effected by the people from 
below, and to refuse to be satisfied with reforms 
effected from above by the princes. These chiefs 
were assured of the sympathy, perhaps they were 
promised the assistance, of the English government, 
which makes it a point to support a revolutionary 
party in every foreign state. 

In the mean time, all the batteries we had erected 
were opened. Exeter Hall, and the Protestant Alli- 
ance were in full operation, and I thought it quite 
certain that a force was accumulated and brought 
to bear on the Rock of Peter that would shiver it 
into ten thousand atoms. Our presence was no 
longer necessaVy at Rome, and after Easter of 1847, 
we went to Paris, to fire a train in that city of com- 
bustibles. We were not needed there, for having 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 207 

had interviews with the chiefs of the revolutionary 
party in Geneva, we had already prepared them. 
They had more than profited by our instructions ; 
they had even improved on them, and stood in closer 
relation to the Unknown Force than we did ourselves. 
All we could do to aid on the revolution which broke 
out the following February, was to persuade some 
of the leading Liberals to introduce the " peaceful 
agitation," reduced to so perfect a system by O'Con- 
nell in Ireland, which was done in what were called 
the " Reform Banquets." 

All France at that moment was, in some sense, 
revolutionary. Guizot, at the head of the govern- 
ment, was a reformer, as I have shown, but only on 
condition that authority took the initiative. But, 
to admit the necessity or propriety of any reforms 
or changes was a tacit concession altogether to the 
prejudice of the existing order. After Guizot and 
his party, came the dynastique reformers, such as 
Thiers and Odillon-Barrot, w T ho wished the Orleans 
family to possess the throne, but to deprive the 
throne of all effective power, and to establish a par- 
liamentary despotism. The watchword of these at 
that moment was, the extension of the electoral 
franchise. There were at that time, out of a popu- 
lation of thirty-six millions, only about two hundred 
thousand electors. After the dynastique reformers, 
came the Catholic party, led on by the noble, learned, 
eloquent, and singularly pure-minded Montalembert, 
a man of principle, of faith and conscience, with 



208 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

whom religion was a living and all-pervading prin- 
ciple. This party consulted, first of all, the freedom 
and independence of the church, and was compara- 
tively indifferent to the dynastique question. Its 
drapeau was neither that of Henri Cinque nor that 
of the House of Orleans, but religion and social 
order. The watchword at that time was, Freedom 
of Education, denied by the monopoly secured to 
the University, which educated in a pantheistic, Vol- 
tarian, or an irreligious sense. As the government 
sustained the University, and denied freedom of Edu- 
cation guarantied by the constitution, they opposed 
the government. 

Behind these came the Legitimists, the adherents 
of the elder branch of the Bourbons, filled with old 
Gallican reminiscences, and whose watchword was 
Henri Cinque. They were opposed to the existing 
government, ready to take active measures to over- 
throw it, and were ready to support the church, in so 
far as she demanded nothing for herself, and would 
lend all her resources to uphold and decorate the 
throne. They were a set of superannuated old gen- 
tlemen, with polished manners and courtly address, 
decorated with some very respectable prejudices, but 
wholly ignorant of their times, and incapable of 
learning. They were a clog on the Catholic party, 
and were chiefly answerable for the reestablishment 
of the Bonapartists and the present Napoleonic 
Caesarism in their beautiful country. However, they 
were opposed to Louis Philippe, and ready to effect 
a change. 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 209 

After the Legitimists, who were royalists and 
opposed to the existing government, came the Re- 
publicans, moderate and immoderate ; the moderates 
having for their organ Le National, the immoderates 
La Reforme. These, however, were all opposed to 
monarchy, whether in the elder or younger branch 
of the Bourbons, and wished the republique, — 
some, as Lamartine, Arago, with the Girondins, those 
phrase-mongers of the old revolution, the repub- 
lique of the respectables, of the Bourgeoisie, attorneys, 
professors, and hommes de lettres; others, such as 
Ledru-Rollin, and the Montagnards, a republique 
democratique, une et indivisible, with Robespierre, 
Couthon, Saint-Just, Danton, and Marat; while 
others still, too numerous to mention, wished, with 
Barbeuf, La Republique democratique et sociale ; 
and not a few wished no government, no political or 
social order at all These were the Subterraneans, 
reformers after our own hearts, and on whom we 
chiefly operated, and through whom we brought the 
odic force to bear on the revolutionary movement. 

Aside from all these, but ready to cooperate, for the 
moment, with any or all of them, as would best serve 
their purposes, were the Imperialists, the Bonapart- 
ists. After the fall of Napoleon, and the Restoration 
of the Bourbons, the Bonapartists had affected libe- 
ral, I may say, democratic ideas, and had lent their 
powerful influence throughout Europe to demo- 
cratize the public mind ; and at the time of which I 
speak, the chief of the family was very nearly an 



210 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

avowed socialist, and was hand-and-glove with the 
Subterraneans. They knew well that they could be 
healed only when the waters should be troubled ; and, 
whether they were troubled by an angel of light or 
an angel of darkness, was a matter of perfect indif- 
ference, unless, indeed, they had more confidence in 
the latter than in the former. 

Add to these parties the intrigues of England, 
who could not forgive the Spanish match, that crown- 
ing act of the Philippine policy, also the illusions 
we were able to keep up as to the views and inten- 
tions of Pius the Ninth, and it required no messen- 
ger from another world to announce that France 
was on the eve of a tremendous convulsion ; that 
the days of the King of the Barricades were num- 
bered ; and that, whatever might be the afterclap, 
the reigning dynasty must fall, with a crash that 
would be reverberated throughout all Europe. The 
only care of our party was to push forward in front 
the more moderate reformers, more especially the 
dynastique reformers, while we organized a Subter- 
ranean force that w T ould drive them, in the moment 
of their success, beyond the point at which they 
aimed, and compel them to accept the Republique, 
which, if proclaimed at Paris, we felt certain that we 
could, during the panic which would succeed, fasten 
upon the nation. 

The history of the events that followed is w r ell 
known, and need not be repeated. The old king, in 
the moment of peril, proved that he was a true 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 211 

Bourbon, incapable of a wise decision or an ener- 
getic act. All at once he had a horror of bloodshed, 
sacrificed his ministry, called to his council Thiers, 
Odillon-Barrot, and other dynastiques, who, vainly 
imagining that their bare names would allay the 
storm which they still more vainly imagined that 
they had conjured up, ordered the troops back to 
their barracks, and gave up the king and his dynasty 
to the armed and infuriated mob. The king abdi- 
cated ; the Regency, under the Duchess of Orleans, 
was scouted ; the royal family scampered for their 
lives towards England, that refugium peccatorum ; 
monarchy was abolished ; the Republique was pro- 
claimed; a provisional government was organized 
impromptu, and a convention of delegates, to be 
chosen by universal suffrage, was ordered to meet 
and give France a regular political organization. 

But a few days elapsed before the movement in 
Paris was followed by insurrections in Berlin, Vien- 
na, and a large number of the smaller German states. 
The Italian peninsula was all in a blaze ; democracy 
was in the ascendant in all Europe, except Russia, 
Spain, Belgium, and Holland. Hungary demanded 
independence of Austria ; the Slavic populations of 
the Austrian Empire at Prague and Agram were 
preparing to join in a panslavic movement; Pius 
the Ninth was deprived of all freedom of action, and 
held virtually imprisoned; Naples and Sicily were 
in full revolt, and the king ready to concede every 
thing, and, Bourbon-like thwarting every effort of 




212 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

his loyal subjects to protect him; Charles Albert 
declared himself the sword of the Holy See; the 
Lombardo- Venetian kingdom rejected Austrian su- 
premacy, and chose him for king. He marched at 
the head of his troops, swelled by contingents from 
all Italy, to drive the barbarians back over the moun- 
tains, and to clear the peninsula of every vestige of 
foreign dominion. 

We were elated ; we felt that success was sure, 
and that our grand philanthropic World-Reform was 
on the point of being completely realized. But 
alas! homo proponit, Deus disponit. The spirits had 
deceived us. Pius the Ninth displayed a passive 
courage that we had not counted on, and nothing 
could induce him to sanction the war against Aus- 
tria ; and in spite of all we could do, it finally leaked 
out, that he had not sanctioned it, and that the revo- 
lutionists had belied him, and entirely misrepresented 
his principles, conduct, and wishes. Old Radetzky, 
after retreating before Charles Albert till he had 
obtained reenforcements, turned upon his pursuer, 
defeated him, and drove him, with shame and loss, 
out of Lombardy. Prince Windishgratz beat the 
rebels in Prague ; the lazzaroni flogged the republi- 
can heroes in Naples, and the people seized the 
throne, in spite of its weak and pusillanimous occu- 
pant. In fine, Cavaignac, after four days of hard 
fighting, prostrated the Subterraneans of Paris, and 
became Dictator of the Republic. We were no longer 
in the years of grace '91, '92, or '93. The age was 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 213 

not as far gone in unbelief as we had reckoned, and 
the friends of religion and society were more nume- 
rous and more energetic than we had believed. 

Our hopes were damped, but not extinguished. 
We had thus far used the Pope, but we could use 
him no longer, and we must get rid of him, and 
k completely secularize the Roman government. We 
had used the Italian princes ; we must now reject 
them, and abandon Gioberti for Mazzini. We suc- 
ceeded in wresting the government entirely from the 
Pope, but he himself escaped us, and fled to Gaeta, 
which was a serious injury to our cause. The Pope 
in exile is more powerful than in the Vatican. We 
meant to have confined him in his palace, and held 
him as a puppet in our hands, and still for a time 
continued the use of his name ; but in this his flight 
defeated us. We were obliged to proclaim the Ro- 
man Republic, and the temporal deposition of the 
Pope, prematurely ; but still we hoped, as we took 
care not to touch his person or his spiritual preroga- 
tives, that we should not lose the sympathy of the 
Catholic public. 

But it was all in vain. Our magic failed us ; a 
more powerful magician than we intervened, and 
everywhere the reaction gained ground against us. 
Austria, whom we thought we had disposed of, rose 
Antseus-like from the ground ; the Giobertians, pre- 
dominant in the Subalpine kingdom, would not own 
us. Florence was deserting us ; Venice held out, 
indeed, but Lombardy was chained by old Radetzky. 



214 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. - 

Great Britain wished us well, gave us good advice, 
but came not to our aid ; and Spain and Portugal, 
that we thought dead, suddenly started into life 
against us. Russia, though she loved not the Pa- 
pacy, detested us, and was ready to interpose to 
bring Prussia to her senses, and to assist Austria. 
And last of all, the French Republic, which we had 
been the principal agents in creating, fearing the 
preponderance of Austria, and anxious to have 
an outpost in the Eternal City, sent her troops 
against us. 

It was in vain to struggle. I saw clearly that the 
battle was against us, and that we should never suc- 
ceed, by political and social revolutions, in effecting 
our purpose ; and I made up my mind at once to 
have nothing more to do with them. I resolved to 
return home, and fall back on what I have hinted as 
an ulterior project. It was in the Autumn of 1849. 
The abortive attempt to reorganize the German Em- 
pire had failed, and not to our regret, since we saw, 
if reorganized at all, it would not be on democratic 
principles; the authority of St. Peter was reesta- 
blished at Rome; the Magyars were forever pros- 
trated in Hungary, and our friend Kossuth had taken 
refuge with his friends the Mussulmans, and France 
was becoming an orderly government under the Presi- 
dency of Louis Napoleon and the conservative ma- 
jority of the Legislative Assembly. There was 
nothing more that we could do. 

It is true, that many of our friends thought differ- 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 215 

ently from me, and wished to continue the struggle; 
but I told them that, if they did, they must do so 
without my active cooperation ; that I should leave 
them to their simple human strength, and they would 
find all their plans miscarry. The time is not op- 
portune. Christianity has yet a stronger hold on 
the European populations than you or I had calcu- 
lated, and the Christian party can no longer be duped 
and made to fight for us. They thrill with horror 
now to hear us say, u Christianity is democracy, and 
Jesus Christ was the first democrat." They are be- 
ginning to see, as clearly as we do, that all this is at 
best absurd, and that our movement is essentially 
an ti- Christian. They see, they admit, they deplore 
a certain number of political and social abuses ; but 
they believe these abuses more tolerable than the 
reforms we would effect. 

We have given the bishops, the clergy, and the 
pious laity a horrid fright; and you will see them, 
almost to a man, before three years expire, exultingly 
consenting to the reestablishment of pure Caesar- 
ism, in order to be relieved of their fears of us. 
Louis Napoleon will succeed in making himself, 
i almost with the unanimous voice of France, pro- 
claimed Emperor, with absolute, or virtually absolute 
pow T er, with no effective check on his arbitrary will ; 
parliamentary government will be scouted, as hardly 
a step removed from Subterranean democracy ; free 
discussion of public affairs will be closed ; the press 
will be muzzled, and no voice will be heard through- 



216 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

out the empire, save a voice in praise or flattery of 
the new Emperor. 

But herein is our consolation and our hope for the 
future. The new Emperor will have to deal with 
Frenchmen ; and he counts without his host, if he 
thinks he can, for any great length of time, silence 
thirty-six millions of French voices, or make them 
all speak one way. Mortal man cannot do it. Sa- 
tan himself could not do it ; and only One, whom 
we name not here, could do it. Now they are afraid 
of us, and have had even an excess of talk. They 
will consent for a time, even as a novelty, to be 
silent, or shout, as an admirable change, Vive PEm- 
pereur, instead of Vive la Republiqne democratique 
et sociale, — d bas les Dernocrates, instead of a bas 
V AristocrateS) or V Aristocrates a la lantern, and a bas 
les socialistes, instead of a bas les Rois. But rely 
upon it, that after a brief repose, these same French- 
men will be desirous of mouvement, and will by no 
means be pleased to find themselves doomed to the 
silence and stillness of death. Then will be our 
time once more, and perhaps then we may be more 
successful. Till then I engage no more in political 
and social reforms. I shall take myself to that which 
underlies all political and social ideas, and slowly, 
perhaps, but surely, prepare a glorious future. You 
will hear from me again, or if not, you will feel the 
influence of what I shall do. 

With remarks like these, I took my leave of my 
European revolutionary friends. I communicated 



ROME AND THE REVOLUTION. 217 

to Priscilla, who had faithfully served me throughout 
the time I had been abroad, and powerfully con- 
tributed to such successes as we had had, my design 
of returning home. We were in Paris. She would, 
perhaps, have rather returned to Rome. She had, 
in fact, began to droop, and to be weary of the part 
I had forced her to play. She had, during our stay 
in Rome, become a mother, and new feelings and 
affections had been awakened in her heart. Her 
husband had treated her kindly, forbearingly, but 
he had much changed, and no longer favored phi- 
lanthropy or reform, and it was rumored that he had 
become devout. Priscilla evidently began to turn 
to him with something approaching the love and 
esteem she owed him, and would gladly have broken 
her liaison with me. But I would not hear of it ; 
she must return with me. 



19 



218 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 



It may be asked why I wished Priscilla to return 
with me, against her w T ill, since I had no passion for 
her, and respected the honor of her husband. I 
wished it partly from spite, and partly because it 
was necessary to my purpose. She had induced 
me, or had had more influence to induce me than 
any one else, to embark in a cause which I loathed, 
and which at the same time I felt myself totally 
unable to abandon, and I wished to make her suffer 
wdth me. Then, again, I could do nothing without 
an accomplice, and that accomplice a woman. I 
travelled abroad in the character of a simple Ame- 
rican gentleman, not as a mesmerizer, a magician, 
or one who commands invisible powers. Nobody 
abroad, or even at home, ever suspected me, unless 
it was good old Mr. Cotton, of any thing of the sort. 
In all cases when the mysterious force was to be 
exerted, as long as she was connected with me, I em- 
ployed Priscilla as my agent. I gave her my orders, 
which she, without exciting any suspicion against 
her or myself, seldom failed to execute to the letter. 

Even after her own views and feelings began to 
change, and she felt the slavery and degradation of 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 219 

her position, she dared not disobey me. She stood 
in awe of my power, and knew well the merciless 
punishment that awaited her. Often, often has she 
begged me, with tears and in the deepest agony, to 
undo my spell over her, and to let her go free. I 
would not. Had she not declared her spirit eternally 
wedded to mine ? The truth is, I was half afraid to 
undo the spell, and emancipate her. She knew too 
many of my secrets, might expose me, and defeat 
all my plans ; and once freed from me, once restored 
to the empire of reason, she would feel herself bound 
in conscience to do so ; and when a woman once 
takes it into her head to act from conscience, she is, 
whether she have a good or a false conscience, as 
unmanageable as if she were in love. She is as 
headstrong under conscience as under passion, and 
of course absolutely uncontrollable, because in either 
case she uses her reason simply in the service of her 
feelings. Then, again, I did not like accepting a 
new accomplice. 

Priscilla, not daring to resist, finally persuaded 
her husband to consent to return home. We crossed 
the Channel to England, and hastened to embark at 
Liverpool on board a steamer for New York. We 
had a stormy passage, and came near being cast 
away ; but at length arrived in port, and soon found 
ourselves in Philadelphia, after an absence of six 
years and six months amidst scenes and events of 
the most exciting character. We were all changed 
in looks, but still more in feelings. The fire of our 



220 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

enthusiasm was extinct, the freshness and sanguine 
hopes of youth had fled forever ; our labor had been 
in vain, and there was no bright or cheering pros- 
pect before us. I took my leave of Priscilla at the 
public-house where we stopped. "When I saw her 
faded cheek, her sunken eye and withered form, the 
wrinkles gathering on her brow, and heard her, in a 
broken voice, renew her oft-repeated request, and 
remembered what she was some ten or twelve years 
before, and thought of what I was too at that time, 
and what I was now, I had a touch of human feel- 
ing, and pressing her hand to my lips — I had not 
the heart to refuse — I told her I would consider it, 
perhaps I would, and hurried out of the room, to 
conceal my emotion, not sorry, after all, to find that 
I had not wholly ceased to be human. 

The next day, I started for my home in Western 
New York. Home, alas! no longer. The house 
was desolate. During my prolonged absence, my 
mother and my only^ sister had died, and all my 
family were gone. My library and my laboratory 
remained as I had left them. They had no charms 
for me now. I lookefd out upon the familiar scenes 
of my childhood; they seemed changed all, and 
were tame and listless. I met some companions of 
my earlier life; there was nothing in common be- 
tween them and me. Their voices sounded strange, 
and grated on my ears. The sad conviction, for the 
first time in my life, forced itself upon me, that I 
was alone, and deeply I felt my loneness. I had 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 221 

lost my childhood's faith, which, though meagre and 
but a shadow, yet was something. I had no Father 
in heaven, no brother or sister on earth. I believed 
in neither angel nor spirit. All existence, all being, 
had dwindled into one invisible, elemental, imper- 
sonal Force, which indeed I could wield, but to what 
end? 

In my loneness, I felt that the vulgar belief in the 
devil, in ghosts, and goblins damned, would be a 
solace. They would be something, and any thing 
is better than nothing. Better is a living dog than 
a dead lion. Alas, I had sold myself, and my re- 
demption was far off. Strange enough, I felt some- 
thing like passion revive in my guilty breast. I felt, I 
even regretted Priscilk/s absence ; and it seemed that 
she was dear to me, and that I could not endure life 
without her. s I pictured her to myself as I had first 
known her, and I wept as I remembered how for 
long years I had enslaved her. A voice whispered 
in my heart, emancipate her. A momentary feeling 
of generosity possessed me. I summoned her, as I 
knew how, to my presence. She appeared, instanta- 
neously. 

" Priscilla," said I, " I am sad and weary. Life 
has lost its charms for me, and I care not how soon 
I die. I have nothing to live for. You are a wife 
and a mother. I absolve you from your pact; be 
free; return, and devote yourself to your husband, 
who is worthy of you, and to your boy. I have, and 
will no longer have, power over you." 
19* 



222 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

A gleam of joy spread over her face, a smile of 
gratitude played on her lips, and a look of love shot 
from her eyes, and the place where she stood was 
vacant. She had vanished ; but a chattering, as of 
a thousand mocking voices, filled my room, and 
then impish, mocking faces were seen all around, 
making mouths at me. I cared not for these. I 
silenced the former, and sent away the latter with a 
word. I retained my magic force still. But there 
was joy as well as sorrow in that house in Arch 
street, Philadelphia. Priscilla, the day of returning 
to her own house, had been taken ill; her husband 
was alarmed, and called a physician, who could un- 
derstand nothing of her case. She grew worse and 
worse ; and during the time I had summoned her to 
me, she fell into a sort of stupor, a complete trance, 
and to all except her husband, who had seen her in 
that state before, and knew that she was subject to 
trances, she seemed to be dead. The moment I had 
absolved her, she came to herself, a sweet smile on 
her face, with the hue of perfect health. She arose 
in bed, embraced her husband with a warmth and 
sincerity of affection which he had never before 
known, and for the first time since his birth looked 
upon her boy with the glad joy of a mother's heart. 
But at this moment her husband was more to her 
than her babe. She hung on his neck, she pressed 
him to her heart, she half-smothered him with kisses, 
spoke in the terms and tones of the tenderest and 
sweetest affection, and it seemed as if she would 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 223 

pour out upon him, in a single moment, the loaded 
affections of a lifetime. " My dear husband, you 
must forget and forgive the past. I am yours, yours 
now, yours alone; heart, soul, and body, forever. 
The spell is broken. The delusion is gone; take 
me, take me, dear James, to your heart." 

James was a man. He had been dazzled by the 
beauty and accomplishments of Priscilla, and thought 
it enough to be accepted as her husband, without 
much scrutiny into the state of her affections. She 
had, for a moment, imposed upon him, and he had 
accepted her notions of woman's rights, philan- 
thropy, and world reform. But he did not lack good 
sense; he had even a strong mind, firm principles at 
bottom, and all the elements of an upright, manly 
character. A few months' practical experience served 
to cure him of a good deal of his philanthropy, and 
to damp the ardor of his zeal for reform. He was, 
of course, displeased with my intimacy with Priscilla, 
and he owed me, it must be owned, no good will. 
But his observation pretty soon satisfied him, that 
whatever the bond of that intimacy, it was not what 
directly affected his honor as a husband, and he re- 
solved that he would seem not to regard it. It was 
a bitter trial to him. 

His tour abroad, his observation, and his conversa- 
tions with gentlemen and ladies, not always of our 
clique, had opened his eyes to many things, and 
made him a stanch conservative. He abandoned all 
the loose notions he had previously entertained, re- 



224 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

nounced his Quaker quietism, and had become sin- 
cerely converted to a real objective Christian faith. 
His first thought and care were to reclaim his wife, 
and, if possible, to release her from the mysterious 
power which I seemed to have over her. He found 
her as anxious to be released as he was to release 
her, and he thought he discovered in her, at times, 
a growing affection for himself. It was a difficult 
case to manage, but he thought it best to be pru- 
dent and discreet, and to avoid every thing that could 
excite remark, or that he himself might afterwards 
regret. 

Feeling now that he had himself not been entirely 
free from blame, that he was bound to be forgiving, 
that Priscilla was really his wife, the mother of his 
child, and that she probably was freed, though he 
knew' not how, and did now really love him, he 
responded with a warmth nearly equal to her own, 
to her strong expressions of love, frankly forgave her 
all, and pressed her to his heart as his own, his truly 
beloved wife. It was for both the happiest moment 
they had ever known, and in that one moment James 
seemed to have been compensated for his patience, 
forbearance, and suffering, for so many years. 

Priscilla immediately regained her health and 
cheerfulness, and resolved, if possible, to recover me 
from the bondage in which she knew I was held. 
How she sped in this, and what new trials, if any, 
awaited her, will appear as I proceed in my nar- 
rative. 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 225 

My own feeling of loneness, of desolation, was 
not relieved by my release of the woman I had so 
long held spell-bound, but was aggravated by the 
constant annoyance of a passion which I had seldom 
before experienced, or which, without much trouble, 
I had always been able to subdue. As Priscilla be- 
came purified and less unworthy of her husband, and 
as she seemed the more completely to have escaped 
me and to be lost to me forever, the more did I feel 
that I could not live without her, and the more im- 
possible did I find it quietly to endure her absence. 
I was mad. I called her. The charm was broken, 
and she came not ; I saw only a vague, undefined 
form, flit before my eyes, and heard only a wild 
mocking laugh. 

Weeks passed, but they seemed ages. Priscilla, 
In all her loveliness, in all her gracefulness and 
dignity, in all the brilliancy of youth and beauty, 
was constantly present to my morbid fancy by day, 
and to my dreams at night. I was completely un- 
manned, — wept now as a child over a lost toy, or 
now raved as a madman. I could not eat, I could not 
sleep. I could endure it no longer. I sold my house 
and furniture, disposed of my laboratory and sci- 
entific apparatus, packed up my library, and resolved 
that henceforth I would take up my residence in 
Philadelphia. 

I had no sooner established myself in my new 
home, than I called in Arch street to see Priscilla. 



226 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Instead of her I found James. He received me 
civilly, even kindly, conversed with me of what we 
had seen abroad, but Priscilla did not appear. No 
matter, I would call again. Did so ; saw Priscilla 
only in presence of her husband. She was looking 
well, was affectionate in her tone and manner, but 
offered me not her hand, and seemed to take care 
that I should not so much as touch her dress. Well, 
said I to myself, be it so. The weakness shall last 
no longer. I will be myself again, and resume the 
project I had contemplated. I went home, not cured, 
but resolved, and immediately commenced my evo- 
cation, and communicated my orders to all the cir- 
cles I had established throughout Europe. 

I have already hinted what this new project was. 
It was clear to me, from my historical reading and 
my personal observations amid the exciting scenes of 
the more recent European revolutions, that the grand 
support of social order, and what I have somewhere 
called the system of restraint and repression, is 
Christianity, and that the political and social re- 
formers can never fully carry out their reforms till 
they have totally rooted out from modern society all 
belief in the Gospel, and all peculiar reverence for 
its Author. This is more than hinted by Mazzini 
and Kossuth, although the latter is a vice-president 
of the American Bible Society, boldly avowed by 
M. Proudhon, and stoutly contended for by the 
German Turnverein and Freimanner. If you con- 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 227 

cede the Christian idea of God, says Proudhon, 
you must at once and forever abandon your idea of 
liberty. 

It was equally clear to me, that the attempt, by 
means of political organizations, and revolutions 
directed against the papacy, or any church organiza- 
tion, Catholic or Protestant, to root out Christianity 
from the hearts of the people, must at last prove a 
failure. After all, there is a natural religiosity in 
man, and though he will often restrain and mortify 
it, and act only in view of purely secular ends, — 
practically live as if there were no God, and no 
hereafter, — he will almost always return to the 
order of religious ideas, and adopt or institute some 
kind of religious worship to which he will subordi- 
nate his political ideas, and his secular ends. An 
Epicurus may deny Providence, a Lucretius may 
sing, in no mean poetry, that it is impossible, " revo- 
care defunctos" and even Cicero may laugh at au- 
gurs and aruspices, and doubt the immortality of 
the soul, yet the sentiment of an invisible Force, of 
a mysterious Power that overshadows us, is uni- 
versal, and the sceptical philosopher feels an inde- 
finable shudder of awe, perhaps of fear, whenever 
he finds himself alone in the dark. Everywhere the 
shades of Acheron wander or flit around and before 
him. 

Even in the midst of our pleasures the thought of 
the invisible and the supernal intrude unbidden to 
mar our festivities, and to dash our joy with an inde- 



228 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

finable sadness, shame, and remorse. Even a Vol- 
taire trembles and blasphemes in dying, at the 
thought of being denied Christian burial, and a 
Volney, who resolves God into blind Nature, and 
Christianity into astrology or astronomy, prays lust- 
ily to the God he disowns, in a storm on Lake Erie. 
Do what we will, we cannot divest ourselves of the 
belief or apprehension of invisible powers, who hold 
our destiny in their hands ; and a people absolutely 
without any religion, or at least superstition, is never 
to be found. 

Never had unbelievers a fairer chance for rooting 
out Christianity by political and social revolutions, 
than in the eighteenth century. The laugh was 
everywhere against religion and the clergy, a de- 
cided materialistic and infidel philosophy pervaded 
literature, possessed the schools, ruled in the courts, 
and domineered over thought and intellect. There 
was lukewarmness in the religious, there were scan- 
dals among the clergy, there were abuses in the 
state, and therefore an imperious call for reform. 
The reformers directed all their movements against 
religion, and their means were democratic and social 
revolution. They were strong, they were overwhelm- 
ing in their power. At their bidding, down went 
throne and altar, and in ten years the religion they 
had abolished was reestablished, the churches they 
had closed were reopened at the order of the soldier 
they had made their chief, and for democracy in the 
state they had an incipient Caesarism, which, two 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 229 

years later, became a fully developed and perfect 
Csesarism. The same result had followed our own 
movement. In January, 1850, religion was far more 
vigorous in Europe, than in January, 1840, and de- 
mocracy at a far greater discount. 

It was idle, then, to hope either to destroy political 
and social authority in the name of absolute unbe- 
lief and irreligion, or to root out Christianity by 
political and social movements. Christianity could 
be eradicated only by means of a rival religion, and 
a religion which could appeal to a supernatural ori- 
gin, and sustain itself by prodigies, or what the 
vulgar would regard as miracles. I had suspected 
this from the beginning, and resolved now, that in- 
stead of working with the purely secular passions of 
men, I would make my appeal to their religiosity. 
Mahomet, in the seventh century, had done this 
admirably for his time and the East, but had incau- 
tiously fixed his superstition in the Koran, and made 
it unalterable, and therefore incapable of adapting 
itself to the new face which things might assume in 
the vicissitude of events, the development of society, 
and the progress of the race. 

Swedenborg had done better, and so had Joe 
Smith, but neither had sufficiently provided for the 
progressiveness of the race, or with sufficient ex- 
plicitness consecrated the principle of innovation 
and change, and both had retained too many con- 
ceptions taken from the old religion. Yet Sweden- 
borg was to be taken as our starting point, and we 
20 



230 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

were only to avoid his mistakes, the principal of 
which was a too strict and rigid church organiza- 
tion. 

When I returned from Europe, I found the direc- 
tions I had given, before going abroad, had been 
pretty faithfully followed ; and mesmeric revelations, 
through Andrew Jackson Davis, and spiritual com- 
munications, through the Foxes, were beginning to 
attract public attention. The spirits were becoming 
exceedingly anxious to communicate, and made, as 
it was supposed, many important revelations. In a 
few months, spiritual knockings were becoming quite 
common, and mediums were found in all parts of 
the country. At first, intercourse with the spirits 
was obtained only in the somnambulic state, or 
through the slow and toilsome medium of raps, but at 
the same time intimations and assurances were given 
that before a great while a more easy and direct 
method of communication would be vouchsafed ; 
but, as yet, the public and individuals were not pre- 
pared for that more direct method. The spirits were 
willing, but the mediums were not sufficiently ad- 
vanced, nor sufficiently spiritualized; and the public 
was too gross, too materialistic, and too sceptical. As 
soon as minds should become more refined, spiritual, 
and believing, open vision would be permitted them, 
and easy and regular communication would be es- 
tablished, and whoever wished would have as free 
and familiar intercourse with the spirit-world as 
with the world of the flesh. 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 231 

At first the great object was to establish the re- 
ality of the spiritual communications. This was to 
be done by the communication of secrets, either 
known only to the interrogator, or incapable of be- 
ing known to the medium in any ordinary human or 
natural way. Sometimes the spirits played the part 
of fortune-tellers; sometimes they assumed to be 
prophets, and ventured to predict future events, but 
always events which either depended on them, or 
lay in the natural order, and which a knowledge of 
natural causes and effects could easily enable them 
to foresee. 

As the spiritual intercourse extended, and believers 
multiplied, the somnambulic and rapping mediums 
ceased to be the only mediums. The artificial som- 
nambulic mediums, or mesmerized mediums, disap- 
peared almost wholly, and to the rapping mediums 
were added writing mediums and speaking mediums, 
and in some instances the spirits became actually 
visible to the seers, and telegraphed their messages 
by visible symbols, and occasionally in words. Spi- 
ritual telegraphing, in some one or all these ways, 
became, in a few months, common in all parts of 
the country ; and, at the expiration of two years, 
there were three hundred spiritual circles or clubs in 
the single city of Philadelphia, and more than half a 
million of believers in the United States. The epi- 
demic had broken out in the North of England and 
Wales, had spread all over Norway, Denmark, and 



232 rHE sriKir-K.vrrr.K. 

Sweden, and Northern and Central Germany, pene- 
trated Franee in all directions, and made its appear- 
anee even ar Rome. In France and Italy, where 
The population is either profoundly Christian or pro- 
foundly intidel, the spiritual manifestation had to 
adopt more disereet and less startling forms than in 
our own and some other countries, and to give place 
at first to doubt whether it was not mere trickery, or 
explicable on recognised scientific principles, and 
confined itself, to a great extent, to the phenomena of 
Table-turning, which excited cariosity without alarm- 
ing conscience. In France, in the most polished, 
fashionable, and, I may almost say. most Catholic 
society, table-turning became an amusement. 

The next point to be attended to, was the doc- 
Trines, The philosophy or religion, that The spirits were 
to teach. It would not do to attack the Gospel too 
openly, and it was necessary to undermine, rather 
than to bombard it. In some respeets even, it was 
advisable to seem to confirm, as it were by one rising 
from the dead, some portions of Christian belief, — 
such as the immortality of the soul, and the reality 
of an invisible spirit-world. The latter was doubted 
by the free-thinkers: bur it was essential to my pro- 
ject that the free-thinkers, in this respect, should be 
converted, for their conversion and acknowledg- 
ment of belief in God and a spirit-world would do 
mueh to commend our spiritualism to a large body 
oi .-illy and ill-informed Christian believer.-, who. 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 233 

seeing sueh apparently good effects resulting from it. 
would conclude that there could be nothing bad in 
it By their fruits shall ye know thorn. 

In the American community, to a very great ex- 
tent, the belief in the immortality of the soul is 
supposed to be identical with the belief in the resur- 
rection of the dead, taught by Christianity; and our 
Unitarians, with their rationalistic erudition, very 
generally hold that the peculiar and distinctive doe- 
trine taught by our Lord was the immortality of the 
soul. Hut the immortality of the soul was believed 
by the whole ancient world. Gentile as well as Jew- 
ish; and, though questioned by some ancient and 
modern sophists, there never has boon found a people 
who, as a body, were ignorant of it. or that denied 
it. All the ancient, as all modern superstitions 
recognize it. All believe the soul is imperisha- 
ble, though many suppose it will bo absorbed in the 
Great Fountain of Life, as a drop in the ocean — a 
misinterpretation en" the Christian doctrine of union 
with God in the Light of Glory, as the ultimate end 
or final beatitude of the just. The doubt was as to 
the body, or the umbra, the material envelope and 
companion and external medium of the soul in this 
life. The gross outward body they believed returned 
to dust, and mingled with its kindred elements ; but 
this umbra, shade, the manes of the dead, which all 
antiquity carefully distinguished from the soul, was 
also, for the most part, believed to be imperishable: 
but its reunion with the soul, I do not find the 
20* 



234 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

heathen world ever clearly asserting. In other words, 
the ancient heathen world, though it retained the 
primitive belief in the immortality of the soul, had 
lost belief in the resurrection of the body, and the 
reunion of soul and body, or at least only retained 
some traces of it in their doctrine of metempsycho- 
sis, or transmigration of souls. 

The peculiar Christian doctrine, or the doctrine so 
insisted on by the Apostles, was not the immortality 
of the soul, which was always presupposed, but the 
resurrection of the dead, the return to life, not of that 
which had not ceased to live, but of that which had 
died, to wit, the body. Hence the article in the 
Apostles' Creed is not, I believe the immortality of 
the soul, but, I believe the resurrection of the body, 
resurrectione?n carnis, the resurrection of the flesh ; 
and to this belief, it must be remarked, that the 
spirit-manifestations afford no confirmation, and in- 
deed they virtually contradict it. 

The distinguishing trait of Christian morality is 
charity, which is distinguished from philanthropy or 
benevolence, as a supernaturally infused virtue is 
distinguished from a mere human sentiment, but, 
in the minds of but too many of those who call 
themselves Christians, really confounded with it. 
The spirits were then, under the name of charity, 
to teach a philanthropic, sentimental, and purely 
human morality, for in doing so, they would seem 
to the mass of superficial Christians to be confirm- 
ing the distinctive trait of Christian morality, and 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 235 

at the same time appealing to the morbid spirit of 
the age. 

Bald, naked Universalism is not popular ; but 
there is a very general disbelief, among the leading 
men of the times, in the old orthodox doctrines of 
heaven and hell, of the last judgment, the everlast- 
ing punishment of the wicked, or that our eternal 
state is fixed by that in which we die. Swedenborg 
had greatly modified these doctrines, and taught that 
the punishment of the wicked is purely negative ; 
that men are in hell only inasmuch as they are not 
in harmony with God ; and not to be in harmony 
with God, that is, good, is to be out of the Divine 
protection, and exposed to all the sufferings incident 
to our abandonment to the natural order of things. 
He had also recognized different heavens, rising one 
above another, and different hells, one below another ; 
and had hinted or asserted the possibility of the 
inhabitants of each improving, and advancing in 
wisdom and virtue, by their intercourse with the 
inhabitants of this world. He had himself even in- 
structed angels, and assisted feeble and undeveloped 
souls. Here were the germs of all that was required. 
The spirits were to teach that there are different 
circles in the other world, into which souls are ad- 
mitted according to their respective tastes and degrees 
of development, with the chance to rise in due time, if 
faithful, from the lowest to the highest. In the lower 
circles, they are improved by intercourse with us, as 



236 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

we are ourselves improved by intercourse with spirits 
of the higher circle. 1 

The dominant doctrine of our age is that of pro- 
gress; that the universe started from certain rude 
and imperfect beginnings, and, by a continued series 
of developments and transformations, is eternally ad- 
vancing towards perfection, without however reach- 
ing it; and that man, beginning, if not in the oyster 
or the tadpole, at least in a feeble and helpless 
infancy, develops and advances towards perfect 
manhood. This doctrine, which a few facts in na- 
tural history, in geology, and anthropology, at first 
sight seem to favor, is at bottom wholly repugnant 
to the Christian doctrine of a fixed creed, of final 
repose or beatitude in God, of final causes, and the 
final consummation of all things. So the spirits 
are to accept it, systematize it, and propose, as the 
highest reward of virtue, to be placed on the plane 
of eternal progression. 

The age is indifferent, syncretic, and disposed to 
accept all religions and superstitions as true under 
certain aspects, and as false under others, and to 
pronounce one about as good and about as bad as 
another. The spirits, therefore, make no direct war 
on any of them. In some places they teach that 
the Catholic Church is the truest and best of pre- 
vailing religions, but that Protestantism is neverthe- 
less a safe way of salvation, and that the spirits do 
not, in the other world, think so much about differ- 



THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. 237 

ences of churches and creeds, as they did when in 
this world. In other places they teach that the 
Catholic Church is false ; that it is wicked, the ene- 
my of moral and social progress, and that effectual 
means should be taken to prevent its extension in 
the United States. They do not deny the Bible, nor 
affirm its inspiration, but take, to a great extent, the 
neological view of it, conceding it to be truthful in 
many respects, but maintaining it to be unreliable 
in others. It was very well when men had nothing 
better, and no surer means of information in regard 
to the spirit- world. 

Such is a brief outline of the new religion, which 
was intended to supplant Christianity, and to open 
the way for that " good time a coming," for which 
all our philanthropists and reformers are looking, as 
any one may satisfy himself by reading the Sheki- 
nah, the Spiritual Telegraph, or Judge Edmands's 
work, from the prolific press of Partridge & Brittan, 
New York. This new religion, which, indeed, con- 
tains nothing new, and which it certainly needed no 
ghost from the other world to teach or to suggest, 
would amount to very little if promulgated on mere 
human authority, unsupported by any prodigies, 
mysterious or marvellous facts ; but, communicated 
mysteriously from alleged denizens of another world, 
bearing the imposing names of William Penn, 
George "Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas 
Jefferson, and Thomas Paine, assumes in the minds 
iof the vulgar a high importance, and can hardly 



238 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

fail to be regarded as overriding Moses and the 
prophets, our Lord and his Apostles. It strikes at 
the foundation of Christianity itself, and once ac- 
cepted, it will seem to have a directness and a com- 
pleteness of evidence that will entirely set aside, in 
the minds of the spiritualists, that in favor of the 
Gospel. This is what I intended, and what I hoped. 
Having set the so-called spirits in motion, and 
through them set afloat a system which I fancied 
would supplant Christianity, whether in its Catholic 
or its sounder Protestant forms, my work seemed 
done, and I could retire from my labors. My super- 
intendence was no longer necessary, and whether 
the agents I employed were really the spirits or souls 
of the dead, as they themselves asserted, or mere 
elemental forces of nature, as I was inclined to be- 
lieve or had wished to persuade myself, became to 
me a question of no interest. The work would go 
on of itself now, and in a few years Christianity and 
the Church would be undermined and fall of them- 
selves. Then monarchy, aristocracy, republicanism, 
all forms of civil government, would crumble to 
pieces, and universal freedom, leaving every one to 
believe and do what seems right in his own eyes, 
will be realized, and all here, as well as those not 
here, will be placed on the plane of eternal progres- 
sion — progression towards — what ? 



239 



CHAPTER XVI. 



A REBUFF. 



I asked not the question, for in fact it did not 
occur to me ; but I asked another question, What 
shall I do with myself? A grave question this. 
Do what I would, turn the matter over as I might, 
there was, now the novelty of the idea had worn off, 
nothing inspiring in this idea of eternal progres- 
sion ; — this ever learning, and never coming to the 
knowledge of the truth — this everlasting chase after 
good, and never coming up with it. Why continue 
a pursuit which you know beforehand will bring you 
never any nearer the object than you are, for as you 
pursue, it flies. Is not this evil rather than good, 
hell rather than heaven ? Is not this the punish- 
ment of Ixion ? — That war of the Titans upon the 
gods, has it not a deep significance ? The Titans, the 
Giants, the Earthborn, Terrce jilii, would dethrone 
I the gods, the heaven-born, the divine, and were de- 
feated and doomed to punishment, to turn forever a 
wheel, to roll a huge stone up the steep hill, and just 
as it is about to reach the summit, have it slip from 
Ithe hands and roll down with a thundering sound ; to 
a task never completed, and always to be renewed, 
or to hunger, with food ever in sight, and always 



i 



240 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

just beyond reach ; to thirst, standing to the neck in 
water, and have it recede always as approached with 
the lips. Is not, after all, this the doom that they 
bring on themselves who reject the wisdom from 
above and follow what my friend Mr. Merton calls 
the wisdom from below ? 

I can very well understand progress towards an 
end, towards a goal that is fixed and permanent, but 
a progress towards nothing, or towards a movable 
goal, a goal that recedes as approached, is to me 
quite unintelligible, and, when I think of it, it 
seems as absurd as the supposition of an infinite 
series. Infinite progression is, in reality, an infinite 
absurdity. The origin and end of all things must 
be perfect, fixed, and immovable. Every mechanic 
knows that he cannot generate motion without a 
something which is at rest, which can cause or 
produce motion without moving itself. Without 
the immovable, there is and can be no movable. 
In like manner, no motion towards what is not im- 
movable, for if the two bodies remain in the same 
position relative to each other, neither, in relation to 
the other, has moved. 

Progress is morally motion towards an end, and 
if there is no approximation to the end, there is 
no progress. As progress is inconceivable without 
some end, so it is equally inconceivable without a 
shortening of the distance between the progressing 
agent and the end. If this distance can be shortened, 
however little, if not more than a line in a million of 



a BEBU1 I • 241 

ages, it if not infinite, and the progress cannot be 
sternal This infinite or eternal progression is, then, 
only a lying dream* 

At. the bottom of this idea of progress, wf'iieh our 
modern reformers prate about, is the foolish notion 
that man is born an inchoate, an incipient God. 
and that his destiny is to grow into or become the 
infinite God ; that ho is to grow or develop into 
the Almighty: that, to bo God, is bis ultimate 
destiny ; and. as God is infinite, he is to bo eternally 
developing and realizing more and more of God. 
without ever realizing him in his infinity. The 
bubble does not burst and lose itself in the ocean, 
but by virtue of its bubojeosity it grows and absorbs 
more and more of the oeean into itself. 

1 cannot understand this eternal absorbing pro- 
cess, which, tbongh always absorbing or assimilating, 
leave-, always the same quantity, physical or moral. 
to be absorbed or assimilated. It is impossible to 
be satisfied with sueh a destiny* To be always 
seeking and never finding, to be always desiring. 
craving, and never filled, is not heaven, it is hell, and 
the severest hell, in comparison with which the pain 
of sense, or natural fire and brimstone were a solaee. 
Man is not moved to act by desire. His desire to 
attain must become hope of attaining, before it ean 
move him, and when you deprive him of that hope, 
you taUl from him all eourage, all energy, and all 
motive to act Desire to possess the beloved, may 
remain and torment the lover, but it ean never suf- 
21 



242 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

fice to make him continue his pursuit when all hope 
of success has been extinguished. I do not say love 
cannot survive hope, but I do say that love's efforts 
cannot, and it is seldom that even love itself does. 

The Christian is stimulated to constant activity, 
not by charity or love of God alone, but by hope ; 
and the hope of possessing God, of being filled with 
his love, of reposing in the arms of all-sufficing 
charity, stimulates onward from grace to grace, and 
from one degree of perfection to another. Though 
he finds not yet perfect repose, though he is not yet 
filled, though he has not yet attained, yet he is up- 
held, buoyed up and onward by the sure promise, 
the steadfast hope of attaining, of at last finding 
repose, rest in the bosom of his love and his God. 
He may feel the clogs of flesh, he may feel that he 
is absent from his love, and sigh to reach his home 
and embrace the spouse of his soul, but he grows 
not w T eary, faints not, and knows nothing of the 
ennui, that listlessness of spirit, that disgust of life, 
and disrelish for every pursuit, which he feels who 
has no object, no hope, and sees not even in the 
most distant future any chance of finding that ful- 
ness and repose which his soul never ceases in this 
life to crave. In losing sight of God as final cause, 
in losing the hope of possessing God as the supreme 
good, in substituting endless progression for endless 
beatitude, full and complete, I had lost §t\ stimu- 
lus to exertion, all motive to exert myself for any 
thing. 



A REBUFF. 243 

Why should I act ? What had I to gain ? Money 
I did not want ; I had more than I could use. Fame 
I despised. It was a mere word, born and dying in 
the very sound that made it. Power, I had it. If 
I had more, it could procure me nothing more than 
I already possessed. Pleasures ? The richest dishes 
and the most precious wines palled upon my taste. 
There remained another kind of pleasure ; but we 
can even grow r weary of .women, and loathe what 
the morbid senses continue to crave. Still nothing 
else remained for me. Yet I had outlived love in 
any virtuous or innocent sense of the word, and 
early training, and some remains of self-respect, 
made any other love far more of a torment than a 
pleasure. 

The simple truth was, that I could reconcile my- 
self neither to the philosophy of the Portico nor the 
philosophy of the Garden, and w T as alike disgusted 
with the Cynics and the Academicians. I was a 
man, and could not live on air, or feed on garbage ; 
I had a soul, and could not satisfy it by living for 
the body alone, and having no God, no heaven, no 
hope of beatitude, and no fear of hell, I saw nothing 
to seek, nothing to gain, and I could only exclaim, 
Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas. I could not say, 
with young and thoughtless sinners, in the heyday 
of their youth, and the full flow of their animal 
spirits, — " Come on, therefore, and let us enjoy the 
good things that are present, let us use the creatures 
as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine 



244 



THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 



and ointments, and let not the flower of the spring 
pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with roses be- 
fore they be withered, and let no meadow escape 
our riot. Let none of us go without his part in 
voluptuousness, and let us leave tokens of our joy 
in every place, for this is our portion and our lot." 
For of all vanities I had learned that this was the 
most empty. Even the devil himself is said to 
loathe the sensualist, and to find his stench intolera- 
ble. Still Priscilla — I had lost her perhaps. That 
touched my pride. We often grieve that lost, which 
possessed, was not valued. 



245 



CHAPTER XVII. 



A GLEAM OF HOPE. 



I had not seen Priscilla for over a year, and had 
struggled hard against the madness that possessed 
me. Finding myself out of work, having completed 
what I had undertaken, as far as depended on 
me, I felt that passion, which I even loathed, re- 
viving within me. Nothing would do but I must 
see my former accomplice again. I called as an old 
friend, and this time found her alone. She received 
me with ease, grace, and cordiality. 

There are those who believe that a woman who 
has once lost even the modesty and chastity of 
thought, can never regain them, and become a truly 
modest and pure-minded woman. They are greatly 
mistaken. The Magdalene had fallen lower than 
that, and yet those were pure tears with which she 
washed our Lord's feet, and but one purer heart than 
hers beat in the breasts of those holy women who 
stood near the cross, and heard the loud cry of the 
God-Man, as he bowed his head and consummated 
the world's redemption. The Fountain, which 
that rude soldier opened with his spear that day, 
suffices to cleanse from the deepest filth, to wash 
away the foulest stains, and to make clean and fra- 
21* 



246 THE SPIRIT- RAPPER. 

grant the most polluted soul. O ye fallen ones, 
whether women or men, bathe in that fountain ! 
and if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white 
as snow, and if they be red as crimson, they shall be 
white as wool. 

I had never seen Priscilla more beautiful. The 
bloom had returned to her cheek ; her form had re- 
gained its roundness, and her complexion its rich- 
ness. Her eyes were serene and tranquil, and her 
countenance wore a sweet, pure, and peaceful ex- 
pression. She had no need to fear me at that mo- 
ment, for I stood, not repelled, but aw r ed, and felt 
myself in the presence of virtue, not haughty, aus- 
tere, and repellant, but lovely, chaste, and affection- 
ate ; natural, easy, and wholly unconscious of itself. 

" I am glad to see you, Doctor," said she, with a 
sweet smile. " Sit down. I have been hoping that 
you would call, but I was afraid that you had en- 
tirely deserted us." 

" You are changed, Priscilla, since I last saw you; 
and I should think my presence would now be even 
more disagreeable than then." 

" Not at all. I was never more glad to see you 
in my life, and I never met you with kinder or more 
pleasant feelings." 

I did not understand this speech, and began to 
draw, in my own mind, certain very foolish conclu- 
sions. 

" Yes," she resumed, " I wished to see you, and 
to see you as I now do, alone. It is of no use refer- 



A GLEAM OF HOPE. 247 

ring to what we were for so many years to each 
other ; but I wanted to tell you that I did you no 
little wrong. You were not innocent, but I was the 
most guilty. We were both miserable ; and you, 
you, my dear friend, are unhappy still." 

" I make no complaint. Nobody has heard me 
whine or whimper over my own lot. If I have suf- 
fered, I have done so in silence." 

" That may be. But you have not forgotten our 
sojourn at Rome in the winter of 1848-49?" 

" Forgotten it ? no, and shall not, as long as I 
live." 

" Do you remember an old Franciscan monk, 
that my husband concealed in our house for some 
weeks ? " 

" I do." 

" He was an old man, nearly fourscore. His head 
was almost perfectly bald, only a few gray hairs es- 
caped from beneath his calotte, and partially shaded 
his temples ; his form, which had been tall and 
manly, was now bent with years, labors, and morti- 
fications ; but his feelings seemed as fresh and play- 
ful as those of a child ; and the expression of his 
face was calm, sweet, and affectionate. It was a 
peculiar expression, not often met with, but like that 
which, you may remember, we one day remarked in 
the face of Pius the Ninth. It was an expression of 
exceeding peace and celestial love, of a pure and 
holy soul shining through a pure and chaste body. 
The expression is indescribable, but once seen, can 



248 TH,E SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

never be forgotten, and seems to be that which 
Italian painters seek to give to their saints, espe- 
cially to the Madonna. 

" This venerable old man had, as you may recol- 
lect, been denounced, by the Circulo del Populo, as 
an obscurantist, an enemy to the republic, and an 
adherent to the Pontifical authority. It was intend- 
ed to include him in the number of priests and reli- 
gious massacred at San Callisto. My husband had 
formed an acquaintance with him, and, having 
learned his danger, smuggled him into our house, 
where it was presumed nobody would think of look- 
ing for a proscribed priest." 

" I remember him ; I did not at all like him, and, 
had I cared much about him, w r ould have betrayed 
him to the Club ; for I had the wish of Voltaire in 
my heart, that 'the last king might be strangled 
with the guts of the last priest.' But, as he seemed 
old and harmless, and generally kept out of my way, 
I let him pass." 

" He was a quiet, inoffensive man, and I own I 
was not sorry that he should escape the cruel death 
to which philanthropists and sworn friends of liberty 
doomed so many of his brethren. I was not cruel 
by nature, and my soul recoiled from the part I was 
often compelled to take. I thought it was hardly 
consistent for us, who advocated unbounded free- 
dom of thought and action, to send the dagger to 
the heart, or coolly sever the carotid artery in the 
neck of those who chose to think and act differently 



A GLEAM OF HOPE. 249 

from us ; but I was held then by a force I could not 
resist" 

" You mean, Priscilla, now to reproach me." 
" No, my friend, no ; I reproach only myself. Had 
I not originally consented, no power could have held 
me in that terrible thraldom. The agents you em- 
ployed have no such power over us against our will; 
though, when we have once assented to their domi- 
nion, it is not always in our own power alone to 
reassert our liberty. My husband grew very fond of 
the venerable old man, and they spent hours, and 
even days, together. What was the subject of their 
conversation, I knew not, and did not inquire. 

" You returned to Paris, to prevent, if possible, the 
French from interfering to suppress the Roman Re- 
public, by organizing a new insurrection of the Sub- 
terraneans, and by reminding the Prince -President 
of his previous republican and socialistic professions, 
and making it evident to him that the reestablish- 
ment of the Pope would be fatal to the supremacy 
of the state, whether republican or imperial. During 
your absence you left me tranquil, and I began, for 
the first time since my marriage, to enjoy the sweets 
and tranquillity of domestic life. The good Fran- 
ciscan would sometimes spend an evening with me 
and my husband. He was of a childlike simplicity, 
and of most winning manners, but a man of a cul- 
tivated mind, extensive information, and various and 
profound erudition. He discoursed much on the old 
Roman Republic and Eainpire, on the grasping am- 



250 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

bition and tyranny of the government, the hollowness 
of the Roman virtues and the old Roman people, 
the cruel and impure nature of their religion, and 
the looseness and profligacy of their manners. 

" He sketched then the introduction of Christianity, 
showed what enemies it had to encounter, why it 
was opposed, the change it introduced into the moral 
and social life of the people, its triumphs over pa- 
ganism, its conversion and civilization of the northern 
barbarians, and the chastity, peace, and happiness 
it had introduced into the cottage of the peasant, 
the castle of the noble, and even the palace of the 
monarch. His views seemed clear and precise, and 
his mind seemed to be enlightened, and singularly 
free from the cant of his profession, and from that 
credulity, ignorance, and superstition which you and 
I had been accustomed to associate with the name 
of monk. To every question I asked, he had a clear 
and intelligent answer; and he was always able to 
give a reason, and what appeared a good reason, for 
whatever judgment he hazarded. He was evidently 
a man of an order of intellect, ideas, and culture 
entirely different from any that had fallen under my 
observation ; and I must own that when I listened 
to him, I was charmed. I seemed to be under the 
gentle but superior influence of a good spirit. I felt 
calm and tranquil, and I wished that I too might 
believe, be pure, holy, a Christian like him. 

" Weeks passed on. At length we had a chance 
to send him in safety to Portici, where the Holy 



A GLEAM OF HOPE. 251 

Father then held his court. The evening before he 
was to leave us, he came into the sittting-room, and 
sat down by me. ' My dear lady, 5 said he, ' I leave 
you to-morrow, and I shall not see you after to-night. 
You must permit me to thank you for your kindness 
to the poor old proscribed monk, and your evident 
desire to procure him comfort; all so much the more 
commendable in you, since you are a stranger, and 
not of my religion. I give you my thanks and my 
blessing ; they are all I have to give ; and I shall 
not cease to pray the good God, who is no respecter 
of persons, to reward you for your goodness, and to 
grant you his grace. 

" ' But, my dear lady, I am a priest ; I am also an 
old man, and have not many days to tarry here. 
Let me speak to you in all sincerity and freedom.' 

" Do so, my father, said I, as my eyes filled with 
tears. 

" ' You are still young and beautiful,' said he ; 
4 you have naturally a kind and warm heart, an en- 
thusiastic disposition, and a sincere love of truth and 
justice. But, my dear child, your education has 
been sadly neglected, and you have been trained to 
walk in a path that leadeth where you would not 
go. You have fallen among evil counsellors and 
evil doers, and you are entangled in the meshes of the 
adversary of souls. This cause, to which you give 
your heart, soul, and body, is not what you think it. 
You sought liberty, you have found slavery; you 
sought love, and you have found only hatred; you 



252 THE SFIRIT-RAPPER. 

sought virtue, disinterestedness, fidelity, — you have 
found only vice, selfishness, and treachery; you 
sought peace and social regeneration, — you have 
found only strife, war, murder, assassination, confu- 
sion, anarchy, and oppression. For yourself per- 
sonally, the only peaceful days you have known for 
years have been during the last few weeks; and 
your present peace is disturbed by a mysterious 
dread, that I need not name or explain to you. 

" ' Ask yourself, my child, and answer to yourself, 
honestly, if you have not been deceived, and been 
acting under a fatal delusion. Ask yourself if it was 
not a terrible mistake you committed, when you took 
Satan for the principle of good, and the Christian's 
God for the principle of evil.' 

" But, padre mio, what shall I do ? I have a 
suspicion that what you say is true. I have been a 
proud, vain, rash, wicked woman. But what shall 
I do ? I am bound in chains ; I am damned. 

"' Damned, not yet, my child. As long as there 
is life, there is hope. Those chains must be broken.' 

" But they are too strong for me. 

" 4 True, true, my child, but not too strong for the 
Lion of the tribe of Judah. You must be assist- 
ed ' 

" At that moment the door was burst open ; a 
gang of ruffians rushed in, and fell upon the aged 
monk. The old man gave me one look, made 
rapidly the sign of the cross over my head, as I had 
dropped on my knees to implore them not to harm 



A GLEAM OF HOPE. 253 

him. I might as well have pleaded to my marble 
jambs. They threw him down. He rose upon his 
knees, folded his hands across his breast, and with a 
bright, celestial expression, exclaimed, O God, par- 
don them, and lay not this sin to their charge, for 
they know not what they do, — when the leader of 
the gang plunged a dagger to his heart. His blood 
flowed out into my face, and over my dress. After a 
minute, they took up the body, and removed it and 
themselves from my house. Though protected, to 
some extent, by our American character, we did not 
think it prudent to remain longer in Rome, under 
the Republic ; and the next day we started for Paris, 
where we rejoined you." 

" But you never told me of the fate of that old 
monk before." 

"True, why should I? I could not, before we 
had separated, have spoken of him to you without 
arousing your indignation, and inducing you to send 
me again on some of those terrible secret missions 
on which you had so often sent me, and which I so 
abhorred. But I can speak calmly now, and with- 
out fear; and let me beg you to ask yourself the 
question the old monk urged me to ask myself. 
Truth is truth, let it be spoken by whom it may ; 
and there is no reason why we should not follow 
good advice, because given by a monk, even if monks 
have been all our lifetime the object of our wrath, 
or of our derision." 

" Priscilla, I have asked myself that question ; but 
22 



254 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

it is of no use. I have pledged myself, body and 
soul, and sworn that, come what might, I would 
never repent." 

" But that oath was unlawful, and cannot bind. 
He who has your pledge is a deceiver, had no right 
to ask it, has no right to hold it." 

" But I cannot free myself from these chains of 
death and hell which bind me." 

" Such as you have been, such as I fear you are, 
I am told seldom find mercy; but the deliverance is 
not impossible. I, worse than you, have found it." 

a That is not so certain. You are free, only be- 
cause I, in a sudden fit of despair, freed you. But I 
have but to will, and you are as completely in my 
power as ever." 

" That I doubt. Except when you called me to 
emancipate me, you have exerted no power over me, 
since the good old priest was received into our house 
in Rome." 

" That is owing to my forbearance." 

"Will you swear that? Will you swear that, 
within twenty-four hours after you had declared me 
free, you did not use all your art to enthrall me 
again? Did you not call again and again, within a 
month, at my house, for that very purpose?" 

" But you avoided me, and I could not so much 
as touch the hem of your robe." 

" Very true, for I feared you, and I dare not defy 
you even now ; but I feel very certain that, under 
the protection of a name at which even devils must 
bow, I am safe from all your arts." 



A GLEAM OF HOPE. 255 

As she said that I rose, walked once or twice 
across the room, came up before her, took her hand 
unresistingly, and placed my hand on her head. I 
trembled. I was struck dumb, for I perceived at 
once that I had no power there; and, though I 
evoked them, no spirits came to my aid. But before 
I had let go her hand, her husband came into the 
room, saw us, feared what I might do, drew his 
dagger, and before Priscilla could stop him, or offer 
a word of explanation, aimed a blow at my heart. 
Priscilla attempted to avert it, and so far succeeded, 
as to change somewhat its direction. It penetrated, 
however, the chest, reached the lungs, and inflicted 
a wound which, though it is apparently healed, and 
I seem to myself to be suffering only from pulmo- 
nary consumption, which wastes me away slowly 
but surely, my surgeon tells me will yet prove the 
occasion of my death. 

The moment James, a man of peace, and not at 
all given to striking, had struck the blow, he was 
filled with terror at what he had done. I assured 
him, for I retained my presence of mind, which I 
never yet lost in any case in my life, that so far as I 
was concerned, he need not blame himself, for I de- 
served the blow, and had long foreseen that sooner 
or later his hand must deal it ; but, had he delayed 
a moment, he would have found it unnecessary, 
that his wife was safe from my annoyances, and 
proof against any art I possessed. Priscilla, as soon 
as she recovered from her fright, rather than swoon, 



256 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

told him as much ; and we both did all in our power 
to reassure and console him. But the matter must 
not be bruited abroad, and he must conceal it for 
his and Priscilla's sake. It was concluded that I 
must remain for the present in their house. James 
did what he could to stanch my wound, aided me 
to remove to another room, and sent immediately 
for a surgeon whom we both knew and could trust. 
For several weeks I lay at their house, nursed with 
great care and tenderness, till I was able to be re- 
moved to my own house. It was rumored that I 
had been stabbed in the street, but such things not 
being rare in our cities, it excited very little remark ; 
and suspicion, though it fell on the secret societies 
known to exist, fell upon no individual in particular, 
and no pains were taken to ferret out the supposed 
assassin. The fact was noted in the journals, and 
was instantly forgotten. 



257 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 



I had no sooner been removed to my own house, 
than my old acquaintances and friends came to see 
me. Mr. Cotton, the stern but well-meaning old 
Puritan, who had infinitely more mind and heart 
than Young America, that has learned to laugh 
at him, had indeed died during my absence abroad. 
Mr. Winslow and the others whom I have already 
introduced, remained. Poor Jack had recovered, not 
his former gayety, but his health and tranquillity, 
and was entirely freed from the vision which had 
haunted him, and which I have no reason to believe 
was any thing more than a simple hallucination, 
occasioned by a powerful shock to his nerves, pro- 
ducing a diseased state of the imagination. He had 
returned to Boston, given up mesmerism, confined 
himself to the law, and had prospered in his profes- 
sion. When he heard of the accident which had 
befallen me, he came immediately to see me, and 
to render me such assistance as his warm heart 
prompted. He is still my chief nurse, and declares 
that he will not leave me as long as my life lasts. I 
have remembered him in my will, and bequeathed 
him the bulk of my estate, though he knows it not, — 

99 * 



258 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

a poor compensation for the blight I brought upon 
his early hopes. 

Mr. Merton, returning to the city about the time 
of my being wounded, lost no time, after my re- 
moval to my own house, in renewing our former 
acquaintance. Mr. Winslow, and Mr. Sowerby, and 
Leila and her admirer, who had become husband 
and wife, and a sober and sensible couple, were fre- 
quently in the sick man's room. Nobody deserted 
me ; and never in my life have I had occasion to 
complain of ingratitude, or the loss of a friend. The 
world is bad enough, but after all not so bad as 
sometimes represented. I have always been treated 
infinitely better than my deserts ; and I have found 
good sense, warm hearts, and noble virtues, where 
least I expected them. I have reproaches only for 
myself. I have done a world of wrong, and no 
good ; and yet I have found myself, from my child- 
hood, surrounded by generous and disinterested 
affection. People, speaking generally, are far better 
individually than they are collectively ; and many 
private virtues may be found, even in bands of revo- 
lutionists, robbers, and assassins, — virtues which do 
not rise above the natural order indeed, and have no 
promise of reward in heaven, but which neverthe- 
less are virtues. My observation has taught me to 
distrust the censorious, those who rail in good set 
terms at all mankind or womankind, although no 
man living was ever further than I am from believ- 
ing in the sinlessness of the race, or from joining in 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 259 

the modern worship of woman, prompted too often 
by an innate pruriency unconscious of itself. 

As I became able to bear conversation, and to 
take part in it occasionally, mesmerism and the 
Spirit- Manifestations were a frequent topic of dis- 
course. Jack sturdily maintained that it was all 
humbug. There were indeed strange things, some 
phenomena which he could not explain, but he set 
his face against the whole movement, had no belief 
in it, and would have nothing to do with it. There 
was, though he might be unable to detect it, some 
cheat or trickery at the bottom. 

Mr. Winslow held fast to his belief in the connec- 
tion between mesmerism and all the marvellous, 
prodigious, or miraculous facts recorded in history. 
He accepted those facts substantially as related, but 
did not accept their usual explanation. The mira- 
cles of sacred history, and the marvellous facts of 
profane history, w T ere to be explained on natural 
principles, by the mesmeric agent, or by whatever 
other name we might call it. 

Mr. Merton argued that, if the phenomena usu- 
ally called Satanic, obsession, possession, witchcraft, 
black magic, ghosts or apparitions, clairvoyance 
and second sight, could be explained without resort 
to the supernatural, the other class of facts, the 
miracles of sacred history, could be also explained 
without the supposition of the special intervention 
of Divine power. He thought, if we could account 



260 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

for the former without Satan, we could for the latter 
without the supernatural intervention of God. 

Mr. Sowerby held with Mr. Winslow as to the 
reality of the phenomena, and their natural explana- 
tion, but thought they should be divided into two 
classes, one good and the other bad, as produced for 
a good or a bad purpose. When produced in a 
good cause, for a good end, they might be called 
Divine; when in a bad cause, for a bad purpose, 
they might be called Satanic or diabolical. The 
agent is in both cases the same, and the difference 
is in the mind or will that employs it. 

Dr. Corning, my physician, who was a distin- 
guished manigraph, and had written a work, highly 
esteemed by the profession, on Insanity, was quite 
ready to concede the phenomena called spiritual, or 
rather demoniacal, and thought we were bound 
to do so, or to give up all human testimony. He 
also conceded the connection contended for by mes- 
merists between mesmerism and so-called demonic 
phenomena, — a connection, in his judgment, very 
evident, and wholly undeniable ; but he contended, 
with the most eminent manigraphs of France, and 
indeed with the members of the profession generally, 
that the marvellous phenomena recorded were those 
of mania, monomania, theosophania, nymphomania, 
demonopathy, and all to be explained pathologically. 
He included them all under the general head of in- 
sanity, and regarded their variety only as so many 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 261 

different sorts of madness. He had himself wit- 
nessed the greater part of them in his practice, and 
treated them as symptoms of mania. 

" That." said Mr. Merton, " would be very satis- 
factory, if the limits of madness or insanity were 
well defined, and if physicians could never mistake, 
and treat as insane one who is only possessed or ob- 
sessed by the devil To include the marvellous facts 
of history under the head of insanity, without hav- 
ing first established their pathological character, and 
settled it that there is no generic or specific differ- 
ence between them and acknowledged pathological 
symptoms, is not to explain them. How do you 
prove that a person, otherwise in perfect health, with 
no disturbance of the pulse, of the digestive, or any 
other organs to be detected, who on all subjects 
speaks rationally, but who tells you that a spirit has 
possession of him, speaks through his organs, throws 
him down, and otherwise maltreats him, is insane? 
I do not say that such a man is not insane, but how- 
do you prove him insane ? 

" Why, he exhibits the symptoms of insanity, for 
none, but an insane man would utter such non- 
sense." 

" Perhaps so, and perhaps not so. He exhibits 
symptoms of what you are pleased to call insanity ; 
but how do you know that you have not called in- 
sanity what you ought to call by another name, 
possession, for instance ? " 

" I do not believe in possession." 



262 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" Precisely, and therefore when you meet what is 
called possession or obsession, you call it insanity. 
That is a convenient way of reasoning, and not un- 
common with learned physicians and physicists ; 
but it is a begging of the question, not its solution. 
You reason from a foregone conclusion. As you 
yourself and all the profession treat insanity as a 
disease, as symptomatic of some lesion or altera- 
tion of the physical system, or of the organs on 
which the manifestations of the mind depend, I 
should suppose it necessary to establish the fact of 
such lesion or alteration, before concluding the pre- 
sence of actual insanity." 

" Insanity, in such case, would be found to be very 
rare." 

" Very possibly, and perhaps it is much rarer than 
is commonly supposed. It is not impossible that a 
large proportion of those you call insane, and treat 
as lunatics, are as sound of body or mind as you or 
I. Where we find, physically considered, all the 
symptoms of health, we cannot, from purely mental 
phenomena, infer disease. That the vulgar have often 
regarded as under the influence of Satan persons 
who were merely epileptic, cataleptic, or insane, is no 
doubt very true; but it is not impossible that the 
learned and scientific have committed not unfre- 
quently a contrary mistake, and regarded as insane, 
cataleptics, or epileptics, persons who were totally 
free from all pathological symptoms. How will 
you, dear Doctor, explain by insanity a case taken 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 263 

from a thousand similar ones, which I chanced to 
be reading this morning, and which is well attested. 
Allow me to relate it as given by Dr. Calmeil, one 
of your own profession, a learned and highly es- 
teemed manigraph, author of a work, De la Folie* 
and who entertains the same views that you do. 
Missionaries who now, says M. Calmeil,f cross the 
seas to shed the light of faith in the New World, 
are frequently surprised to meet energumenes among 
their neophytes, whilst they acknowledge that it is 
seldom that the devil takes possession of the faith- 
ful in the mother country. The letter which I am 
about to report, addressed to Winslow, a celebrated 
physician, in 1738, by a worthy missionary, proves 
that the delirium of demonopathy may everywhere 
become the lot of feeble and timorous souls. 

" I cannot refuse, at your earnest request," writes 
the missionary Lecour, to write you a detailed ac- 
count of what took place in the case of the Cochin- 
chinese who was possessed, and of whom I had the 
honor to speak to you. In May or June, 1733, being 
in the province of Cham, in the kingdom of Cochin 
China, in the church of a burgh called Cheta, about 
half a league distant from the capital of the pro- 
vince, there was brought to me a young man from 
eighteen to nineteen years of age, and who was a 
Christian. His parents told me that he was pos- 

* Paris, Chez Balliere, 1845. 2 vol. gr. in-8vo. 
f T. 2, p. 417. 



264 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

sessed by a demon. A little incredulous, I might 
say to my confusion, quite too much so, in conse- 
quence of my little experience at that time in such 
things, of which I had never seen an example, 
although I had often heard other Christians speak 
of them, I examined them to ascertain if there were 
not simplicity or malice in their statement. The 
substance of what was gathered from them was, 
that the young man had made an unworthy com- 
munion, and after that had disappeared from the 
village, had retired to the mountains, and called him- 
self only the traitor Judas." 

" On this statement, and after some difficulties," 
resumes the missionary, " I went to the hospital 
where the young man was detained, fully resolved 
to believe nothing, unless I saw marks of something 
superhuman. I began by questioning him in Latin, 
a language of which I knew he had not the least 
tincture. Extended as he was on the ground, froth- 
ing at his mouth, and violently shaken, he rose 
immediately on his seat, and answered me very dis- 
tinctly, Ego nescio loqui latine. I was so astonished 
and frightened that I withdrew, with no courage to 
question him any further 

" However, some days after, I recommenced with 
some probationary commands, taking care to speak 
always in Latin, of which the young man was igno- 
rant. Among other commands, I ordered the demon 
to throw him forthwith upon the floor. I was instantly 
obeyed, but he was thrown down with so much vio- 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 265 

lence, all his limbs being stretched out and rigid 
as a crowbar, that the noise was rather that of a 
falling beam than of a man. Wearied and ex- 
hausted, I thought I would follow the example of 
the Bishop of Tilopolis on a similar occasion. In 
the exorcism, I commanded the demon, in Latin, 
to bear him to the ceiling of the church, feet up and 
head down. Forthwith his body became stiff, he 
was drawn into the church to a column, his feet 
joined together, his back set against the column, 
and, without the aid of his hands, he was run up to 
the ceiling in a twinkling, as if drawn up by a pul- 
ley, without any act or motion of his own, suspended 
with his feet glued to the ceiling, and his head hang- 
ing downwards. I made the demon confess, as I 
intended to confound and humble him, and to com- 
pel him to quit his hold, the falsity of the pagan 
religion. I made him confess that he was a de- 
ceiver, and at the same time compelled him to 
acknowledge the sanctity of our religion. I held 
him suspended in the air, his feet adhering to the 
ceiling and his head down, for more than half an 
hour, but not having sufficient constancy, so much 
was I frightened at w T hat I saw, to continue him there 
for a longer time, I ordered the demon to place him 
at my feet without harming him. He forthwith cast 
him down, as a bundle of dirty linen, but without 
his receiving the least injury. From that day the 
young man, though not entirely delivered, was much 
relieved, and his vexations daily diminished, espe- 
23 



266 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

cially when I was v in the house, and after about five 
months he was wholly released, and is now perhaps 
the best Christian in Cochin China." 

" Pass over the effect of the exorcism, if you 
please," resumed Mr. Merton, " and tell me what 
you think, Doctor, of the facts in this case, which 
Dr. Calmeil concedes, and which, if he did not, it 
would not amount to any thing, for this is only one 
case out of a thousand." 

u I will say," replied the Doctor, " with M. Calmeil, 
that I am very much obliged to the good missionary 
for not withholding his account, for he has described, 
without knowing it, the phenomena of religious mo- 
nomania." 

" It strikes me," replied Mr. Merton, " that Dr. 
Corning has not well examined the case. That 
some of the phenomena may be regarded as symp- 
toms of insanity, I do not question, but if I under- 
stand insanity, it is a derangement, an access of 
what properly belongs to one in his normal state, 
but not the accession of something preternatural. 
It may, in some respects, sharpen the senses, re- 
vive the memory, and render the faculties, or at 
least some of them, morbidly active ; but I have 
never understood that it could enable a man to un- 
derstand and speak a language which he had never 
learned, and of which, in the full possession of all 
his faculties, he knew not a word. I can easily 
understand that in delirium a man may fancy that 
h€ is possessed, and act on the conviction that he is, 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 267 

but I do not understand how delirium alone can ena- 
ble a man, however agile, to climb to the ceiling of 
a church, his back against a column, with his feet 
fastened together, and without using his hands or 
arms, and to remain by the simple application of his 
feet to the ceiling for one half an hour with his head 
down, carrying on all the time a close controversy 
in this very inconvenient position, and finally drop- 
ping upon the pavement without the least injury. 
Such a delirium would, to say the least, be very extra- 
ordinary, and I suspect the Doctor has never found 
a similar delirium amongst any of his numerous 
patients who were unquestionably insane. I will 
venture to say that however striking the delirium, 
the thing is absolutely impossible without super- 
human aid." 

" Part of it is hallucination," replied the Doctor. 

" Whose hallucination ? The young man's, or the 
missionary's ? " asked Mr. Merton. " Not the mis- 
sionary's, for there is no pretence that he was insane ; 
and not the young man's, because the question turns 
not on what he saw, or fancied, or imagined, but on 
what another person, the missionary, saw." 

" Probably the facts are much exaggerated," replied 
Dr. Corning. a The missionary confesses that he was 
greatly frightened, and being so, he may, without im- 
peachment of his honesty, have failed to be strictly 
accurate as to the details." 

11 Then you question the relation. That alters the 
case. Let us take, then, the case, also well attested, 



268 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

of the nuns of Uvertet, which, about 1550, caused 
for a long time so much astonishment in Branden- 
burg, Holland, Italy, and especially in Germany. 
The nuns were at first awakened and startled by 
plaintive moanings. . . . Sometimes they were 
dragged from their beds, and along the floor, as if 
drawn by their legs. . . . Their arms and lower 
extremities were twisted in every direction. . . . 
Sometimes they bounded in the air and fell with 
violence upon the ground. ... In moments in 
which they appeared to enjoy a perfect calm,, they 
would suddenly fall backwards and be deprived of 
speech. . . . Some of them, on the contrary, 
would amuse themselves in climbing to the tops of 
trees, when they would descend, their feet in the air 
and their heads down. These attacks began to lose 
their violence after a duration of three years. A 
very singular madness this, which, as the Diction- 
naire des Sciences Medicates says, 'extended overall 
the convents of women in Germany, particularly in 
Saxony and Brandenburg, and gained even Holland,' 
and it might have added, also, Italy. 'All the mira- 
cles,' it continues, ' of the Convulsionaires, or of 
Animal Magnetism, were familiar to these nonnains, 
who were regarded as possessed. They all foretold 
future events, leaped and capered, ran up the sides 
of walls, spoke foreign languages, &c.' You may 
read the fourteen well authenticated cases recorded 
by Cotton Mather in his Magnalia, and you will 
find that all these, and similar phenomena, were ex- 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 269 

hibited by the bewitched or possessed in Massachu- 
setts near the close of the seventeenth century, and 
known under the name of ' Salem witchcraft,' 
though only a portion of them occurred in that 
famous town. Do you include all these under the 
head of insanity ?" 

u Cotton Mather was a pedant, vain, arrogant, and 
ambitious of power, and I did not expect to hear 
him cited as an authority," replied the Doctor, in 
evident vexation. 

" Cotton Mather," Mr. Merton replied, was one of 
the most learned and distinguished men in New 
England in his time, and, though I am of another 
parish, I respect his memory. I do not cite his 
opinions ; I merely cite him as the recorder of facts 
which either he himself had witnessed with his own 
eyes, or which had been confessed or proved before 
the courts of the colony, and thus far at least his 
authority is sufficient. But I will ask you to ex- 
plain on your hypothesis the phenomena exhibited 
by the Ursuline Nuns of Loudun, France, in the 
seventeenth century, and the authenticity of which 
both Bertrand and Calmeil, as well as others, admit 
were triumphantly vindicated." 

" I know the case to which you refer," answered 
Dr. Corning. " It is the case of a certain number 
of nuns who took it into their heads that they were 
bewitched by one Urban Grandier, whom they had 
refused to accept as their director, — a man of a 
scandalous life, a great criminal, who deserved to be 

28 * 



270 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

executed as he was, if not for sorcery, at least for his 
crimes. I see nothing in this case but the usual symp- 
toms of demonopathy, or religious monomania." 

" The physicians of the time thought differently, 
and there were then and there physicians of great 
eminence who were consulted, and required to make 
to the authorities twenty-five or thirty elaborate 
reports* on the case. But let us recall some of the 
facts. 

" Shortly after, Grandier, a bad priest, was refused 
by these ladies as their director ; he passed by the 
convent, and threw a bouquet of flowers over the 
wall, which was taken up and smelt of by several of 
the nuns. From that moment the disorder com- 
menced. Up to that moment all these ladies were 
in the enjoyment of the most perfect health, and 
strictly correct in their deportment. They were 
all connected w r ith families of distinction and of 
high birth, and had been carefully brought up, and 
yielded to none in their education, their intelligence, 
their piety, their virtues, and their accomplishments. 

"After some weeks of silence, in which they had 
sought relief from their vexations by religious exer- 
cises, prayers, fasts, and macerations, without avail, 
recourse was had to exorcism. The phenomena 
then assumed gigantic proportions. One religious, 
lying stretched out on her belly, and her arms twisted 
over her back, defied the priest who pursued her w T ith 
the Holy Sacrament ; another doubled over back- 
wards, contrived to walk with the nape of her neck 



RELIGIOUS MONOMANIA. 271 

resting on her heels ; another still, shook her head in 
the most singular and violent manner. The exorcist 
says he had frequently seen them bent over back- 
wards, with the nape of their neck resting on their 
heels, walk with surprising swiftness. He saw one 
of them, rising from that posture, strike rapidly her 
shoulders and breast with her head. They cried out 
as the howlings of the damned, as enraged wolves, 
as terrible beasts, with a force that exceeds the power 
of imagination. Their tongues hung out black, 
swollen, dry, and hard, and became soft and natural 
the moment they were drawn back into the mouth. 

"During the intervals of repose, the afflicted ladies 
sought to return to their religious exercises, to resume 
their industry and the deportment proper to their rank 
and their state. But on the arrival of the exorcist 
nothing was any longer heard but blasphemies and 
imprecations. Then the nuns would rise, pass their 
feet over their heads, throw their legs apart, with , 
entire forgetfulness of modesty. Then came what 
Dr. Calmeil calls hallucinations, which made them 
attribute their state to the presence and obsession of 
evil spirits. The Abbess, Madame Belfiel, while 
replying to the questions of the exorcist, heard a 
living being speaking in her own body, as it were a 
foreign voice emanating from her pharynx. They 
all heard a voice distinctly articulated, proceeding 
from within them, stating that evil angels had taken 
possession of their person, and indicating the names, 
the number, and the residences of the demons. 



272 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" In the month of August, 1635, Gaston, Duke of 
Orleans, brother of Louis the Thirteenth, wishing 
to judge for himself of the state of the Ursulines, 
went to Loudun,and was present at several sessions 
of the exorcists. The Superioress at first worshipped 
the Holy Sacrament, giving all the signs of a violent 
despair. The Abbe Surin, the exorcist, repeated the 
command he had given her, and forthwith her body- 
was thrown into convulsions, running out a tongue 
horribly deformed, black, and granulated as morocco, 
and without being pressed at all by the teeth. 
Among other postures they remarked an extension 
of the legs, so great that there were seven feet from 
one foot to the other. The Superioress remained in 
this position a very long time, with strange trembling, 
touching the ground only with her belly. Having 
risen from this position, the demon was commanded 
again to approach the Holy Sacrament, w T hen she 
became more furious than ever, biting her arms, &c. 
Then, after a little time, the agitation ceased, and 
she returned to herself, with her pulse as tranquil 
as if nothing extraordinary had happened. 

" The Abbe Surin himself, while he was speaking 
to the Duke, and about to make the exorcism, was 
attacked and twice thrown upon his back, and when 
he had risen and proceeded anew to the combat, 
Pere Tranquille demanded of the supposed demon 
wherefore he had dared attack Pere Surin. He 
answered with the organs of the latter, and as if 
addressing him : ' I have done so to avenge myself 



RELIGIOUS MOxNOMANIA. 273 

on you.' Was the Abbe* Surin insane ? or did he 
simulate delirium ? 

" The Superioress, at the end of the exorcism, ex- 
ecuted an order which the Duke had just communi- 
cated secretly to the exorcist. In a hundred instances 
it appeared that the energumenes read the thoughts 
of the priest charged with the exorcism. They 
answered in whatever language they were addressed, 
in Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and Turkish. They 
even answered M. de Launay de Razelly in the dia- 
lects of several tribes of American savages, very per- 
tinently, and revealed to him things that had passed 
in America. Urban Grandier, when commanded by 
his bishop to take the stole and exorcise the Mother 
Superior, who he said knew Latin, refused, although 
challenged to do it, to question her in Greek, and 
remained quite confused. Also, the Mother Supe- 
rior remained for some considerable time suspended 
in the air, at an elevation of about two feet above 
the ground. In about three months of exorcism the 
trouble ceased, and the Ursulines were restored, and 
resumed in peace their pious exercises and their 
usual labors." 

" I see no reason to change my opinion," remarked 
the Doctor, at the conclusion of this recital. " It 
was a case of monomania, if the facts were as 
stated." 

" The facts," replied Mr. Merton, " are unquestion- 
able. They have all the authenticity that facts can 
have, and there is not the least ground for suspecting 



274 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

the good faith of the parties. They were all in per- 
fect health, with no symptoms of any disease about 
them. Now, as insanity, of whatever variety, can- 
not render a man more than human, I demand, if 
these facts can all be brought within the humanly 
possible ? Does insanity enable one to assume such 
difficult postures as are described ? Does it enable 
one to bend over backwards and walk rapidly with 
the nape of the neck resting on his heels ; to have the 
extraordinary extension of legs mentioned; to read 
the thoughts of others not expressed ; to tell what is 
passing fifteen hundred leagues off; to understand 
and speak languages never learned or before heard ; 
and to remain for some time suspended unsupported 
in the air ? And, above all, is insanity or madness 
cured by exorcisms? No, no, Doctor. The facts in 
the case, that is, if you take not one or two, but all 
of them, are certainly inexplicable without the pre- 
sence of a superhuman power." 

The Doctor was not at all pleased with this con- 
clusion, which he would by no means admit. He 
said the conversation, if continued, might injure his 
patient, and giving me a few directions, took his hat 
and cane and departed, apparently in a very unplea- 
sant humor, and muttering something about super- 
stition, Salem witchcraft, and the absurdity of edu- 
cated men in the nineteenth century believing in 
such nonsense. 



275 



CHAPTER XIX. 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 



Insanity explains abnormal, but not superhuman 
phenomena. It is a disease of the body, not of the 
mind itself. The mind, being a simple spiritual or 
immaterial substance, is not susceptible of physical 
derangement, and mental alienation proceeds from 
the lesion or alteration of the bodily organs or 
conditions on which the mind is dependent in its 
manifestations. It is cured, when curable, by medi- 
cal, not by purely spiritual treatment ; by physic 
and good regimen, not by exorcisms. 

A few days after the conversation I have detailed, 
my friends being again present, the subject was re- 
sumed. Dr. Corning sustained his hypothesis tri- 
umphantly by selecting such facts in the cases 
brought forward as it would explain, and by denying 
all the rest, — a very convenient and common prac- 
tice of theorizers, — even out of the medical pro- 
fession. 

Mr. Sowerby, who had made a fortune by mes- 
merism and spirit-rapping, thought that only a mo- 
nomaniac would attempt to explain the mysterious 
phenomena in question by insanity. There was in 
the cases not a symptom of mania, and the persons 



276 



THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 



affected, in their moments of repose, and even while 
the affection lasted, were in the normal exercise of 
their faculties, and indicated no signs of mental alie- 
nation, answering always, when answering at' all, 
pertinently, never at random, consecutively, never 
incoherently, as is the case with the insane. He ex- 
plained them, not by mental alienation, but by the 
accumulation or increased activity of a great and all 
pervading principle, perhaps the vital principle itself, 
called the mesmeric or odic principle. He had him- 
self produced phenomena analogous to the most 
extraordinary recorded in history. 

Mr. Dodson, an ex-Universalist minister, men- 
tioned on a former occasion, and who had just pub- 
lished a book on spirit-manifestations, in refutation 
of Judge Edmands's work on the same subject, — a 
great and original thinker, and most profound phi- 
losopher, — in his own estimation, — thought that 
they were all to be explained by phreno-mesmerism, 
or electro-psychology. He had an original theory, 
borrowed in part from Gall and Spurzheim, who 
might, to a certain extent, have borrowed it from 
the Timeus of Plato, that the back part of the brain 
is the seat of involuntary motion, instinct, and un- 
conscious consciousness, that the anterior part is the 
seat of voluntary motion and reflection. The phe- 
nomena are artificially produced by psychologizing 
the subject, or paralyzing the anterior lobe of the 
brain, and leaving the posterior active, and, naturally, 
by a persons sitting down quietly and suppressing the 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 277 

activity of the frontal brain, and giving free scope 
to the occipital, There was no devil, and no odic 
agent in the case. It was all explained by phreno- 
mesmerism, or by the passivity of some, and the 
increased activity of other portions of the brain. 
But he was asked how this could enable a person 
to foretell future events, to read the unexpressed 
thoughts of others, to manifest extraordinary physi- 
cal strength, to understand and speak languages 
never learned, to tell what is passing in distant 
places, and to remain suspended in the air in defi- 
ance of the laws of gravitation He said all these 
were psychological phenomena, or, as Dr. Corning 
called them, hallucinations, nothing of the sort really 
taking place. 

Mr. Sowerby would not listen to him, and there 
was almost a quarrel between the two ex-ministers. 
But their rage being finally mollified by a witticism 
from Jack, the conversation resumed its pacific cha- 
racter. 

" You say, Mr. Sowerby," said Dr. Corning, " that 
you have produced phenomena analogous to those 
recorded in history ? " 

" Certainly," answered Mr. Sowerby. 

" And by the mesmeric or odic principle ? " 

« Undoubtedly." 

" What is your evidence of the existence of such 
a principle? or your proof that such a principle 
exists ? " 

24 



278 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" The phenomena I produce or find produced 
by it." 

" So, you take the phenomena to prove the princi- 
ple, and the principle to explain the phenomena," 
said Dr. Corning, who could reason as well as any- 
body when it concerned the refutation of a theory 
not his own. 

" I am not disposed to question the existence of 
such a principle," said Mr. Merton, " except in the 
form asserted by Mr. Dodson, or when it is explained 
as the immediate action of the mind or will of the 
mesmerizer upon the mesmerized. The fluid as- 
serted by Mesmer, after the animal magnetists of 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as Wirdig, 
Fludd, Maxwell, Kircher, Van Helmont, simply re- 
vised by Baron Reichenbach with a great show of 
demonstration, though denied by Deleuze and some 
other mesmerists, I have no good reason for doubt- 
ing. I am willing to concede the fact, that this fluid 
or agent exists and is employed by Mr. Sowerby in 
his experiments. I am willing to concede that there 
is a fluid or agent, not electricity, not magnetism, 
but analogous to them, contended for by Baron 
Reichenbach, that pervades a numerous class of 
bodies, and may be artificially accumulated, or sti- 
mulated to increased activity. But suppose this ; 
suppose the mesmerizer, wizard, sorcerer, witch, ma- 
gician, actually uses it, I must still ask Mr. Sowerby 
to tell me how he proves it to be the sole principle 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 279 

of the phenomena" produced ? That in most of the 
cases recorded, if not in all, there are proper mes- 
meric or odic phenomena, naturally or artificially 
produced, is, I think, undeniable. The flowers used 
by Grandier, in the case of the nuns of Loudun, and 
the fumigations and sufHations of the old magicians, 
all prove the resort to magnetism. The rod and tub 
of Mesmer, and the cumbrous machinery he used, 
though not indispensable, every magnetizer knows 
are a useful mean. But as these are only subsidi- 
ary, how is it to be demonstrated that mesmerism 
itself is the sole efficient cause, not merely of some 
of the accessory phenomena, but of them all ? In 
the phenomena of table-turning, so extensively wit- 
nessed, magnetism is not absolutely essential. They 
began, as all the recent spirit-manifestations, in mes- 
merism, and at first the table was mesmerized by a 
circle formed round it, joining their hands and rest- 
ing them on it." 

" The tables are turned," said Dr. Corning, " by 
the involuntary and unconscious muscular con- 
traction of the hands pressing upon it. This has 
been proved." 

" So says a French Academician, and so also says 
Professor Farraday, and tables, very likely, may be 
turned in some such way ; but the table is frequently 
known to turn and cut up its capers without any 
circle being formed, without any person being near 
it, or visible hand touching it." 

" That is true," said I, " for I have myself seen 



280 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

the most extraordinary phenomena of table-turning 
when it was certain no pressure, voluntary or in- 
voluntary, had been applied to it by any person visi- 
ble in the room. I have seen a table turn in spite of 
the efforts of four strong men to hold it still, rise up 
without any visible agency, fly over the heads of the 
company, rush with violence from one end of the 
room to the other, spin round like a top, balance 
itself on one leg and then on another, — in fine, 
move along some inches on the floor with the weight 
of a dozen men resting on it, raise itself from the 
floor with them, and remain suspended a foot above 
it, for some minutes." 

" There can be no doubt of that," said Mr. Mer- 
ton. " In Cochin China, we are told on good author- 
ity, that in the time of the predecessors of Gia-long, 
it was a custom in the province of Xu-Ngue, on cer- 
tain solemnities, to invite the most celebrated tutelar 
genii of the towns and villages of the kingdom to 
games and a public trial of their strength. A long 
and heavy bark, with eight benches of oars, was 
placed dry in the centre of a large hall, and the trial 
consisted in seeing which of these could move it 
farthest or with the greatest ease. The judges and 
spectators took their stand at a little distance, and 
saw, as they called the names and titles of the genii 
placed on the bark, the huge machine tip one side 
and then the other, and finally advance and then 
recede. Some of the genii would push it forward 
several feet, others only a few inches. But one who 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 281 

made it come and go with the greatest facility, 
was the tutelar genius of the maritime village of 
Ke-Chan, worshipped under the name of Hon-Leo- 
Hanh, whose temple was in consequence thronged 
with pilgrims, and enriched with votive offerings." 

"But conceding," continued Mr. Merton, "that 
mesmerism plays its part, I wish to know how Mr. 
Sowerby proves that it alone suffices for the produc- 
tion of the phenomena ? Is it not possible that 
another power steps in, and, either alone or in con- 
currence, produces them ? May it not be that mes- 
merism only facilitates or prepares the way for the 
demonic action, produces the state or condition of 
the human subject favorable to Satanic invasion, 
and therefore is to be regarded rather as the occa- 
sion than as the efficient cause of the phenomena?" 

" But I admit no devil ; I do not believe that there 
are any demons," said Mr. Sowerby. 

" I am aware of that," said Mr. Merton, " but I 
suppose that, notwithstanding your disbelief, there 
may be a devil, the prince of this world, as the Scrip- 
tures plainly teach. It is possible that there are- 
whole legions of devils, that the air swarms with 
them, and that they have power to tempt and to vex 
and harass those they would seduce from allegiance 
to the Most High. Their non-existence, at least their 
non-intervention, must be proved before you are enti- 
tled to conclude that your mesmeric or odic agent is 
the sole efficient cause of the phenomena." 
24* 



282 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" But that," said Mr. Dodson, " would overthrow 
all the so-called inductive sciences." 

" If so, I cannot help it," replied Mr. Merton. 
" Tbe inductive philosophers have accumulated a 
mass of rich and valuable facts by their observations 
and experiments, for which I am grateful to them ; 
but I set no great store by the ever-changing theo- 
ries which they imagine or invent to explain these 
facts. But let this pass. If Mr. Sowerby's mesmeric 
or odic force does not explain all the phenomena in 
the case, I presume that he will concede that it is 
not the sole principle of their production." 

" Certainly," replied Mr. Sowerby. 

" This odic agent, is it not a simple natural prin- 
ciple or force, and without reason or intelligence?" 

" It is in itself unintelligent, I admit." 

" But in the phenomena there are evident marks 
of intelligence, w T hich proceed neither from the mes- 
merizer nor the mesmerized. How do you explain 
that ? " 

" The intelligence is the instinctive or involuntary 
intelligence proceeding from the back part of the 
brain," answered Mr. Dodson. 

" Back part of whose brain ?" asked Mr. Merton. 

" The mesmerized or psychologized," replied that 
philosophic gentleman. 

" But there cannot proceed, voluntarily or involun- 
tarily, instinctively or rationally, from the back brain 
or the front brain, what is not in it, or an intelligence 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 283 

which its owner does not possess. I do not now 
speak of the intelligence of either the operator or the 
one operated upon, but of an intelligence of a third 
party. In the recorded and undeniable phenomena to 
be explained there appears a third party, which acts 
intelligently, and gives information unknown to 
either of the other parties. Take the case of the 
spectre that appeared to Brutus before the battle of 
Pharsalia, or that which appeared to Julian on the 
eve of the battle in which he fell mortally wounded, 
and hundreds of similar cases." 

" They are mere hallucinations," interposed Dr. 
Corning. 

" What proves the contrary," replied Mr. Merton, 
"is the fact that they had accurate knowledge of 
future events, which hallucinations have not. I 
place no stress on the fact that a prediction was 
uttered, or seemingly uttered, for that might be a 
hallucination ; the point to be attended to is its 
literal fulfilment, showing a knowledge of the future 
not possessed by the individual to whom the predic- 
tion was made, nor, supposing mesmerism employed, 
by the mesmerizer. Here was an intelligent third 

I party. 

" There is a very well authenticated case of a 
domestic in the German village of Kleische, who, 
returning one evening from a place near by, where 
she had been sent of an errand, saw a little gray 

I man, not larger than an infant, who, because she 
would neither go with him nor answer him, threat- 



284 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

ened her, and told her, as she reached the threshold 
of her master's house, that she should be blind and 
dumb for four days. The prediction was exactly 
fulfilled. Instances enough are on record of persons 
afflicted, as they supposed, by evil spirits, who have 
foretold the day and hour when they would be deli- 
vered. In the case of the parsonage of Cideville, 
which in 1849 made so much noise in France, the 
agent that rapped was intelligent, for the raps gave 
distinct and intelligent answers to the questions 
addressed to it, and communicated facts unknown 
to the questioner and to all the persons present. 

" The ancient pagan oracles may be cited. They 
did not, I concede, foretell what belongs exclusively 
to the supernatural providence of God, but they did 
foretell, clearly and distinctly, events belonging to the 
natural order, beyond the reach of ordinary human 
foresight. That many of the responses were false, 
that many of them were ambiguous and suited to 
the event, let it turn out which way it might, I by 
no means deny, but this cannot be said of all of 
them. The contrary is evident from the great repu- 
tation they enjoyed, and the long ages that they were 
consulted, not by the vulgar only, but by kings, 
princes, nobles, and philosophers, of the most learned 
and polite nations of Gentile antiquity. Men are 
deceived, deluded, but never by pure falsehood. It 
is the truth mingled with the falsehood that deceives 
or misleads them." 

" But the whole," said Jack, " was a system of 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 285 

jugglery, cheatery, and knavery, of the heathen 
priests." 

" I do not defend, 55 replied Mr. Merton, " the an- 
cient pagan superstitions, nor the strict honesty, any 
more than the immaculate purity, of the ancient 
priesthoods ; but I have learned not to explain great 
effects by petty causes, like the shallow-pated phi- 
losophers of the last century, and the historians of 
the school of Voltaire, Hume, and Robertson, who 
had no more comprehension of the real causes and 
concatenation of events than a respectable goose. 
All heathenism was founded on delusion, but not a 
delusion originating with, and kept up by, the trick- 
ery and jugglery of priests, who were often greater 
dupes than any others. No art, craft, jugglery, or 
fraud, could be carried on for three thousand years in 
the bosom of cultivated nations without detection. 
There were men in ancient heathendom as able 
and as willing to detect human imposture, as are 
our modern philosophers, who tell us so gravely in 
their elaborate works how the priests contrived to 
work their miracles, and to keep the people in sub- 
jection. The only sound philosophy proceeds on 
the assumption of the general good faith of man- 
kind, or that they dupe and are duped, save in indi- 
vidual cases, without malice prepense. 

" In these oracles there was a superhuman intelli- 
gence, and an intelligence which was neither that of 
those who consulted nor that of those who gave the 
response, and it tells you itself why the oracles after 



,286 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

the birth of our Saviour and the spread of Christian- 
ity, became mute. 

Me puer Hebrseus, divos Deus ipse gubernans, 
Cedere sede jubet, tristemque redire sub Orcum; 
Aris ergo dehinc tacitus abscedito nostris. 

The Hebrew youth, himself God and master of the 
gods, had reduced them to silence. Whence this 
third intelligence ? It cannot come from the odic 
agent, for that is unintelligent." 

" I do not agree with Mr. Sower by," said Mr. 
Winslow. " I believe all existence is intelligent, and 
all forces intelligent forces. God is infinite intelli- 
gence. He is the principle and similitude of all 
things, and therefore every thing must, like him, be 
intelligent." 

" That was my view," said I, " or else I should 
have had no hesitation in explaining a large portion 
of the mysterious phenomena by the old notion of 
demonic invasion." 

" Yet this view," replied Mr. Merton, " is decidedly 
untenable. God, in the sense of creator, is the prin- 
ple of all things, and in the sense that the ideas or 
types after which he creates them are in his eternal 
reason, he is their similitude ; but it is not necessary 
to suppose that every creature imitates him in all 
his attributes, which would suppose that a cabbage 
has intellect and will, and a granite block is endowed 
with charity. The infinite intelligence of God sup- 
poses that all are created, ordered, and governed by, 
and according to, intelligence, but not that every 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 287 

creature is intelligent, or an intelligence. We might 
as well say that every creature is infinite, for God is 
infinity, as well as intelligence. 

" In the phenomena of demonopathy the patient 
is distinctly conscious of an intelligence not his own. 
The Mother Superior in the convent of Loudun was 
distinctly conscious that the words spoken by her 
organs did not proceed from her intelligence, and 
that they were uttered, not by her will, but against 
it. There is a thousand times more evidence of this 
third intelligence, and that it is personal, than Baron 
Reichenbach has adduced in proof of his odic agent. 
The nuns of Loudun knew what they did, and they 
struggled with all their might against the power that 
afflicted them. They knew as well that their words 
and actions proceeded from a foreign personality, and 
not from themselves, as you know that my words 
and actions do not proceed from you. They held in 
the greatest horror the blasphemous words their 
organs were made to utter, and the indecent pos- 
tures they were made to assume, and sought deli- 
verance by prayer and pious practices. That does 
not proceed from one's own will, which he holds in 
horror, and struggles against." 

" The will and intelligence was that of Grandier, 
who mesmerized them. He, by the mesmeric agent, 
had placed himself in relation with them, and he 
moved them as a mesmerizer does his somnambu- 
list," said Mr. Sowerby. 

" That Grandier persecuted them, and was in some 



288 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

sense near them, is what they uniformly asserted, 
and what I am not disposed to deny, but that it was 
he who possessed them, and used their organs, is not 
to be supposed ; because one human being cannot 
thus possess another, and because the intelligence 
and will displayed surpassed his own. Grandier, if 
he afflicted them, did it only by means of a foreign 
power, foreign both to his personality and theirs, as 
even Mr. Sowerby contends ; but this foreign power 
must have had, as is evident from the recorded phe- 
nomena, intelligence and will of its own." 

After a long discussion on this point, which I had 
hardly for a moment questioned, for I had proved it 
by my experiments with Priscilla, and with tables 
and inanimate objects, time and again, though I 
saw not all that it involved, all except the Doctor 
and Jack agreed that it must be so. The Doctor 
would not make an admission that required him to 
modify what he had written and published on in- 
sanity, and Jack would not hear a word on the sub- 
ject. His experience was explicable on the assump- 
tion of hallucination, and he would not believe any- 
body had had a more marvellous experience than his 
own. 

"But," said Mr. Merton, "this wonder-working 
power, if it have intelligence and will, must be a 
spirit, good or bad, and, also a superhuman spirit, 
since the phenomena are superhuman." 

" So," said Dr. Corning, " here we are in the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth century, in this age of science, 



MESMERISM INSUFFICIENT. 289 

after so much has been said and written against the 
folly, ignorance, barbarism, and superstition of past 
ages, back in the old superstitious belief in demons, 
good and bad angels, ghosts and hobgoblins, fairies 
and ghouls, witches and witchcraft, sorcery and 
magic. Well, gentlemen, I have done. I am in- 
clined to believe there must be a devil, for if there 
were no devil we could hardly have such poor suc- 
cess in bringing the world to reason, and curing it of 
superstition." 

" There may be more truth in what you say than 
you suspect," said Mr. Merton. " The devil is the 
father of ignorance, credulity, and superstition, no 
less than of false science, infidelity, and irreligion." 



25 



290 



CHAPTER XX. 



SHEER DEVILTRY. 



A few days after this last conversation, I was 
visited by Judge Preston, whom I had slightly 
known in former years, — a man of very respectable 
gifts and attainments, and of high standing in the 
community. He had been a politician, lawyer, legis- 
lator, and was now a Justice of the Supreme Court 
of his native State. He was moral, upright, can- 
did, and sincere, but like too many of his class, as 
wel] as of mine, had grown up and lived without 
any fixed or determinate views of religion. To say 
he had rejected Christianity, would be hardly just; 
but he had only vague notions of what is Christ- 
ianity, and if he did not absolutely disbelieve a 
future state, he had no firm belief in the immortality 
of the soul. He rather wished than hoped to live 
again. He had not long before lost his wife, whom 
he tenderly loved, and her death had plunged him 
into an inconsolable grief. He wept, and refused to 
be comforted. A friend drew him one evening into 
a circle of Spiritualists or Spiritists, and after much 
persuasion, induced him to seek through a medium 
an interview with his deceased wife. What he saw 
and heard convinced him, and he soon found that 



SHEER DEVILTRY. 291 

he was himself a medium — a writing medium, I 
believe. 

Judge Preston, in connection with a physician of 
some eminence, and his friend Van Schaick, formerly 
a member of the United States Senate, a promi- 
nent politician a few years since, and in religion a 
Swedenborgian, had just published a work, of large 
dimensions as well as pretensions, on Spiritualism 
and Spirit-manifestations, very well written, and not 
without interest to those who would investigate the 
subject of demonic invasion. 

He said that he had called to see me in obedience 
to an order given him by Benjamin Franklin, who 
assured him that I could, if I chose, give him some 
information on the subject of the spirit-manifesta- 
tions, for I had had more to do with them than any 
man living. 

I replied that I was very glad to see him ; but, as 
to the conversation on spirit-manifestations, I must 
decline taking part in it myself. I was very weak, 
and I did not think I could give him any informa- 
tion of importance. He could probably learn much 
more from the shades of Franklin, William Penn, or 
George Washington, than from me. George Fox 
and Oliver Cromwell could tell him many things ; 
Swedenborg and Joe Smith more yet. I advised 
him to call up the Mormon prophet, who could pro- 
bably give him more light on the subject than any 
one who had gone to the spirit-world since Ma- 
homet. I should, however, be most happy to hear 



292 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

him and my highly esteemed friend Mr. Merton, who 
was present, converse on the subject. 

" Mr. Merton," said the Judge, " I perceive is not 
a believer, and I am not fond of conversing with 
sceptics." 

"Judge Preston," said Mr. Merton, "can hardly 
call me a sceptic, and I think, were we to compare 
notes, he would find me believing too much rather 
than too little." 

" It may be so," said the Judge, " but I feel as 
if I was in the presence of an unbeliever, and an 
enemy of the spirits." 

" We must not place too much reliance on our 
feelings ; and the habit of carefully noting them, and 
taking them as our guides, is not to be encouraged," 
answered Mr. Merton. " Our feelings become warp- 
ed, obscure our perceptions, and mislead our judg- 
ment. I certainly do not deny the facts, or the 
phenomena which you call spirit-manifestations, 
although I may not, and probably do not, admit 
your explanation of them, nor the doctrines concern- 
ing God, the universe, and man and his destiny, 
which I find in your book." 

" But do you believe that spirits from the other 
world do really communicate with the living?" 

" That there is in many of the phenomena, I say 
not in all, which you call spirit-manifestations, a 
real spiritual invasion, I do not doubt; but whether 
the spirits are the souls of the departed, or really 
demons or devils personating them, is a question to 



SHEER DEVILTRY. 293 

which you do not seem to me, from your book, to 
have paid sufficient attention. You are necro- 
mancers, diviners with the spirits of the dead. 
Necromancers are almost as old as history. We 
find them alluded to in Genesis. Moses forbids 
necromancy, or the evocation of the dead, and com- 
mands that necromancers shall be put to death. In 
all ancient and modern pagan nations, necromancy 
is found to be a very common species of divination. 
The African magicians found at Cairo practise it 
even at the present time, as we find testified to by 
an English nobleman and a French academician, 
though by a seeing medium, not, as is the case with 
you, by rapping, talking, and writing mediums. The 
famous Count de Cagliostro, or rather Giuseppo Bal- 
samo, at the close of the last century, professed to 
enable persons of distinction to converse with the 
spirits of eminent individuals, long since dead ; and 
evocation of the dead has long been practised at 
Paris by students of the University. You are real 
diviners, attempting, by means of evoking the dead, 
to divine secrets, whether of the past or the future, 
unknown to the living. You practise what the 
world has always called divination, and that species 
of divination called necromancy. Thus far, all is 
plain, certain, undeniable, and therefore you do that 
w r hich the Christian world has always held to be 
unlawful, and a dealing with the devils. This, how- 
ever, is nothing to you, for you place the authority 
of the spirits above that of Jesus Christ, and do not 
25* 



294 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

hesitate to make Christianity give place to spirit- 
ism. But what I wish you to tell, me is, the evi- 
dence on which you assert that the invading or 
communicating spirits are really the souls of men 
and women who once lived in the flesh ? " 

" They themselves expressly affirm it, and prove 
it by proving that they have the knowledge of the 
earthly lives of the persons they say they are, which 
we should expect them to have in case they were 
those very persons." 

" The question, you will perceive, my dear Judge, 
is one of identity — a question with which, as a 
lawyer and a judge, you must have often had oc- 
casion to deal. Is the evidence you assign suffi- 
cient ? " 

" On my professional honor and reputation, I say 
it is." 

" Do you find the spirits always tell the truth ? " 

" No. I have said in my book they frequently 
lie." 

" Then the simple fact that a spirit says he is 
Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Washington, George 
Fox, William Penn, or Martin Luther, is not a suffi- 
cient proof that he is." 

" I concede it. But I do not rely on his word 
alone. I examine the spirit, and I conclude he is 
identically Franklin only when I find that he has 
that intimate acquaintance with the earthly life of 
Franklin which I should expect to find in case he 
really were Franklin." 



SHEER DEVILTRY. 



295 



" But that intimate acquaintance does not es- 
tablish the identity, unless you know beforehand 
that the spirit could not have it, unless he were 
Franklin. The spirits, I find by consulting your 
book, have told you the most secret things of your 
own past Jife, and secrets which could by no human 
means be known to any one but yourself. Yet the 
spirit who knew these secrets was not yourself, but 
an intelligence distinct from you. Now, if the spirit 
could show himself thus intimately acquainted with 
your earthly life without being you, why might he 
not be intimately acquainted with Franklin's earthly 
life without being Franklin ? " 

" That is a point of view under which I have not 
considered the question. But, nevertheless, I have 
subjected the spirits to severe tests, and compelled 
them to confirm what they say by extraordinary 
visible manifestations.'' 

" But the difficulty I find is, that there is nothing 
in those manifestations that necessarily establishes 
the identity pretended ; for they do not necessarily es- 
tablish the credibility of the power exhibiting them, 
as you yourself allow, when you acknowledge that 
the spirits are untruthful, and not unfrequently lie 
to you. Miracles accredit the miracle-worker, es- 
tablish his credibility, only when they are such as can 
be performed only by the finger of God. If they are 
such as can be performed by a created power, with- 
out special Divine intervention, or such as might be 
performed by a lying spirit, they prove nothing as 



296 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

to the credibility of their author. A messenger, or 
a person claiming to be a messenger from God, per- 
forms a miracle which can be performed only by the 
hand of God, and thus establishes his credibility, be- 
cause he proves by the miracle that God is with 
him, vouches for what he says ; and God, we know, 
can neither deceive nor be deceived, and therefore 
will not endorse a deceiver. But prodigies, though 
superhuman, which do not transcend the powers of 
created intelligence, do not accredit the agent who 
performs them, certainly not when it is conceded 
the agent can, and in many cases does, lie and de- 
ceive. I must think, my dear Judge, that you have 
been hasty in concluding the identity pretended. All 
you can conclude, from the phenomena in the case, 
is, that there is present a superhuman spirit, person- 
ating or pretending to be Bacon, Franklin, Penn, 
Swedenborg, or some other well known person who 
has lived in the flesh, and is able to speak and act 
in the character assumed." 

" My attention, I grant, has not been so specially 
turned to the question of identity of the spirit with 
the individual personated, as it has been to esta- 
blishing the reality of the spiritual presence," said 
the Judge. 

" And you have been mainly intent on and carried 
away, I presume, by the revelations you have re- 
ceived, or doctrines on the greatest of all topics 
taught you by the spirits." 

" That is true. I have been much more impressed 



SHEER DEVILTRY. 297 

and confirmed by them than by the visible or physi- 
cal manifestations which I have witnessed. The 
sublime doctrines and pure morality which the spirits 
teach have chiefly won my conviction." 

" But these, however much they may seem to you, 
are very little to the Christian believer. In their 
most favorable light, they do not approach in sub- 
limity and purity, human reason alone being judge, 
the Gospel of our Lord. There is nothing new in 
your spiritual philosophy, and your morality merely 
travesties a few principles of Christian morality. 
You assert the immortality of the soul, never, in 
ancient or modern times, denied by the heathen 
world ; but the peculiar Christian doctrine of the 
resurrection of the dead, and of future rewards and 
punishments, you do not recognize. You hardly 
stand on a level with Cicero or Seneca. You tra- 
vestie the Christian doctrine of charity, or substitute 
for it a watery philanthropy, or a sickly sentiment- 
ality. There is in your system some subtilty, some 
cunning, chicanery, and ingenuity, but no deep 
philosophy, no lofty wisdom, no broad, comprehen- 
sive principles, no robust, manly virtue. The point 
on which you place the most importance is that of 
infinite progression, which is an infinite absurdity ; 
and inasmuch as it denies the doctrine of final 
causes, denies God himself, and is, in the last ana- 
lysis, pure atheism. 

" That some true and good things are said by the 
spirits, I do not deny. The devil can disguise him- 



298 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

self and appear as an angel of light. He is a great 
fool, no doubt, but not fool enough to attempt to 
seduce men by evil as evil. He must present false- 
hood in the guise of truth, and evil in the guise of 
good, if he would do evil. It is not likely that he 
would begin by shocking the moral sense of the com- 
munity, and we should expect him to recognize and 
appeal to the moral sentiments and dominant beliefs 
of the men of the age ; and this is all that you can 
say of the teachings of the spirits. But, except the 
confirmation of the fact taught by religion in all 
ages, that there are spiritual beings, superior to man, 
who surround us and may invade us, nothing they 
teach can be relied on, because their veracity is not 
established, and their unveracious and lying charac- 
ter is conceded." 

" There are lying spirits, I concede, but all are 
not," interposed the Judge. 

" Be that as it may, in what transcends your 
own knowledge, or is verifiable by your own natu- 
ral powers, you have no means of distinguishing 
them, or of determining when the communication is 
true, or when it is false. When a spirit unfolds to 
you a system of the universe, — a system which 
comes not within the range of scientific investiga- 
tion, — you cannot say that he is not deluding you, 
and giving you fairy gold, which will turn out to 
be chips or vile stubble." 

" You think us deluded, then ? " 

" In what you see and hear, no ; in regard to what 



SHEER DEVILTRY. 299 

lies beyond, yes. I believe you honest; I believe 
you really receive communications from invisible 
spirits; I believe you fabricate, simulate nothing. I 
give you full credit so far as regards the mysterious 
phenomena you relate ; I agree with you in the con- 
clusion that these phenomena are produced by 
spirits ; but I regard as not proved the identity of 
these spirits with the spirits who were once united 
as human souls to bodies ; and what they teach of 
God, the universe, and human destiny, I regard as a 
delusion — a Satanic delusion, designed to seduce 
you from, or to prevent you from returning to, your 
allegiance to God and his Christ." ~ 

" That this is the fact/' said 1, " I am quite sure. 
If any proof of it were wanting, it might be found 
in the fact that these spirit-manifestations are even 
by Judge Preston himself identified with those which 
have always been opposed to Christianity, and by it 
pronounced Satanic ; and by the further fact, that 
they teach as truth the principal doctrines which the 
movement party of the day oppose to the Gospel. 
Take the doctrines set forth by the Seer Davis, those 
which you find in the Shekinah, and even in Judge 
Preston's own book, and you find them in substance 
the prevailing infidelity of the times, dressed out in 
a spiritual garb. I have very good reasons for 
knowing that these spirit-manifestations have been 
started for the very purpose of overthrowing Christ- 
ianity by means of an infidel superstition. The 
prime mover had precisely this object, and no other." 



300 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" We have," said the Judge, " only your word for 
that. I regard these phenomena from God." 

" So the devil wishes you to regard them, for he 
seeks, by means of them, to carry on his war against 
the Christian's God, and to get himself worshipped 
as God," said I. 

" The devil," said Mr. Merton, " can go only the 
length of his chain, and that chain is much shorter 
than it was in old heathen times. He can do only 
what he is permitted, and it is very possible that 
what he is now doing will turn out to his signal dis- 
comfiture. It will give a serious blow to the mate- 
rialism and Sadducism of the age, lead men to 
believe in the reality of the spirit-world, and when 
that is done, they will have made one step towards 
believing in Christ. The age is so infirm as to deny 
the existence of the devil; and even becoming able 
to believe once more in the reality of his Satanic 
majesty, will be a symptom, slight though it may be, 
of convalescence." 

" We," remarked the Judge, " are no Sadducees. 
We believe in both angel and spirit, in good angels 
and bad angels." 

" That is something," said Mr. Merton ; " and, if 
you open your hearts, and keep them open to the 
light, you may in time believe more, and escape the 
meshes in which Satan has now entangled you. 
Your great mistake is in supposing that these good 
and bad angels are departed souls. I do not say 
that departed souls may not revisit the earth; they 



SHEER DEVILTRY. 



301 



have done so, and they may continue to do so, but 
the human soul never becomes an angel or a de- 
mon. It is all very well to say of a departed dear 
one, he or she is an angel in heaven, but taken lite- 
rally, it is never true. In the resurrection, our Lord 
says the just are like the angels of God, in the respect 
that they are neither male nor female, and neither 
marry nor are given in marriage, but he does not say 
that they are angels ; and the Scriptures distinguish 
between the company of the angels and the spirits 
of just men made perfect. Men were created a little 
lower than the angels, and they are of a different 
order. The demons or devils are not wicked souls 
separated from their bodies, and wandering on this 
or the other side of the dark-flowing Acheron, but 
the angels who kept not their first estate, and were 
cast out of heaven. 

" These fallen angels, under their chief, Lucifer or 
Satan, carry on their rebellion against God by seek- 
ing to seduce men from their allegiance to their 
rightful sovereign. They can and do invade men, 
because they are superior to men, and are malicious 
enough to do it. But the good angels never do it, 
for they work not by violence, but by moral, persua- 
sive, peaceful, and gentle influences; and human 
souls cannot do it, for the strong keepeth the house 
till a stronger comes and binds him. Nothing re- 
mains then, my dear Judge, but to regard these 
spirit-manifestations, in so far as real, as the inva- 
sions of Satan, as produced, not by good angels or 
26 



302 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

departed souls, but by the fallen angels, called de- 
mons by the Gentiles, and therefore, all these mys- 
terious phenomena, in so far as they are not produced 
by natural agencies, as sheer deviltry. This is the 
only conclusion to which I, as a Christian philoso- 
pher, can come respecting them." 



303 



CHAPTER XXL 



SPIRIT-MANIFESTATIONS. 



Mr. Merton's conclusion did not precisely please 
me, although I had suspected it from the first. Yet 
it troubled me, and I would gladly have escaped it. 
The next day, when Mr. Merton called to see me, 
as he did every day, I told him that I did not like 
his conclusion, and I wished he would give me his 
real thoughts on the subject. 

" Without recurring to the teachings of Christ- 
ianity, which I have the happiness of believing, I 
could not," said he, a explain these mysterious spirit- 
manifestations, and I should not know what to think 
of them. I might be tempted to deny them, as does 
our friend Jack — to believe them produced by some 
inexplicable jugglery, even against my better judg- 
ment ; or I might try to acquiesce in the belief of 
our friend the Judge, that they are the souls of the 
departed. Most likely, I should treat them simply 
as inexplicable, and attempt to construct no theory 
for their solution. 

" I am unwilling to suppose the supernatural, 
and will not, where I cannot satisfactorily demon- 
strate the insufficiency of the natural. The whole 
history of our race bristles with prodigies, with mar- 



304 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

vellous facts, clearly divisible into two distinct and 
even opposite orders. The one seem to have for 
their object to draw men towards God, and assist 
them in ascending to him as their last end and 
supreme good ; the other seem to have for their ob- 
ject to draw men away from God, and to aid men 
in descending into the depths of night and darkness. 
Man has a double nature, is composed of body and 
soul, and on the one side has a natural aspiration to 
God, and on the other a natural tendency from God, 
towards the creature, and thence towards night and 
chaos. A supernatural power assists him to rise ; 
a preternatural power assists him, so to speak, to 
descend. But whether in the ascending or in the 
descending scale, it is not easy to say where the 
natural ends and the supernatural begins, for in both 
cases the foreign power presupposes the natural, and 
blends in with it, and simply transforms the action. 
" There is, no doubt, much in either order set down 
by the vulgar to foreign intervention, that is really 
explicable on natural principles. Good, pious people 
cry out ' a miracle,' not seldom where no miracle is ; 
and I should be sorry to be obliged to make an act 
of faith in all the miracles recorded in the legends of 
the saints. I should be equally sorry to be obliged 
to believe every tale that is told of Satanic invasion. 
I have a deep and settled horror of scepticism, but 
also a horror no less of superstition. I would no 
more be credulous than incredulous. I do not like 
to undertake the refutation of those who explain the 



SPIRIT-MANIFESTATIONS. 305 

facts of the night-side of nature on natural princi- 
ples, for it is hard to do it, without giving more or 
less occasion in many minds to superstition. It is 
only in cases, like the present, where the disease is 
an epidemic, more destructive than the cholera or 
the plague, that I am willing to do what I can to 
draw attention to their real character. 

M In regard to the dark prodigies, if I may so call 
them, I think not a few included by the vulgar under 
this head should be dismissed as mere jugglery; 
others may be explained by animal magnetism, and 
imply neither fraud nor dealing with devils, but are 
not innocent, because produced not by a justifiable 
motive, and are in all cases to be discountenanced 
because of dangerous tendency; others still may, 
perhaps, be explicable by natural causes, which sci- 
ence has not yet investigated, and of which we are 
ignorant. 

u But a residuum remains which it is impossible 
to explain without the assumption of Satanic inter- 
vention. Such are some of the cases which you 
have heard me relate. Such are many of the phe- 
nomena which you yourself must have witnessed, 
and perhaps been instrumental in producing. Such, 
too, is the inspiration of Mahomet, if we may rely 
on the account given us by his friends, as well as 
the demon of Socrates, and such are evidently the 
well known cases of the Camisards or Tremblers of 
the Cevennes in 1688, George Fox and the early 

26* 



306 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Quakers, Swedenborg, and the trance or ectasy of the 
Methodists, and finally Joe Smith and the Mormon 
prophets. In all these cases there are evident marks 
of superhuman intervention, and which no man in 
his sober senses, and instructed in the Christian reli- 
gion, can pretend is the intervention of the Holy 
Ghost, or of good angels. The perturbation, the 
disorder, the trembling, the falling backwards, the 
foaming at the mouth, the violence which always in 
these cases accompany the presence of the spirit, are 
so many sure indications that it is an evil, not a good v 
spirit. The Lord was not in the strong wind that rent 
the mountain ; he was not in the fire that wrapt it 
in flames ; but in the still small voice that made the 
prophet step forth from his cave to listen. When the 
Lord comes in his gracious visitations all is sweet- V 
ness and peace. No disturbance of the physical 
system, no whirling and howling, no storm or tem- 
pest, no wringing and twisting of the arms and legs, 
no violent or indecent postures, no abnormal develop- 
v^r jment or exercise of the faculties, mark the incoming 
of the Holy Ghost. All is calm and serene ; the 
understanding is illuminated, the heart is warmed, 
the will is strengthened, and the whole soul is ele- 
vated by the infusion of a supernatural grace. There 
is no crisis, no forgetfulness on awaking from a 
trance. But whenever it is the reverse, wherever 
there is violence, distortion, quaking, trembling, and 
disturbance, we know that if any spirit is present it 



^ 




l! 1 



SPIRIT-MANIFESTATIONS. 307 

is an evil spirit, which delights in violence and dis- 
order, and displays power without love, force without 
goodness, knowledge without gentleness. 

" Everybody has heard, I suppose, of the prodigies 
wrought by touching the tomb of the Deacon Paris, 
the famous Jansenist saint, and the violent contro- 
versy they occasioned between the Jansenists and 
the Jesuits, the former trying to magnify them into 
miracles to the honor of their sect, and the Jesuits 
very unnecessarily and very unwisely, in my judg- 
ment, laboring to disprove or discredit them as facts. 
The prodigies are well authenticated, and I see no 
way of denying them without throwing doubt on all 
human testimony. Among them I select those which 
indicate, on the part of the affected, a surprising 
power of physical resistance, and among these I se- 
lect only one, that of Jeanne Moulu, a young woman, 
from twenty-two to twenty-three years of age, given 
by the Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicates. This 
young woman, in her convulsions, was placed with 
her back against a wall, and a man of great strength 
took an andiron weighing some twenty-five pounds, 
and struck her on her stomach several blows in suc- 
cession with all his strength, sometimes to the num- 
ber of one hundred blows and over. A brother gave 
her sixty blows, and afterwards, trying his blows 
against the wall, it gave way at the twenty-fifth 
blow. It was in vain, says Carre de Montgeron, a 
grave magistrate, that I struck with all my force, the 
convulsionary complained that my blows brought her 



308 THE SPI KIT-RAPPER. 

no relief, and obliged me to place the andiron in the 
hands of a large and very strong man found among 
the spectators. He spared nothing, but put forth all 
his strength, and dealt such terrible blows on the pit 
of her stomach that they shook the wall against 
which she was supported. She made him give her 
the hundred blows which she had demanded at first, 
counting for nothing the sixty she had received from 
me. When the andiron sunk so deep into the pit of 
her stomach as to seem to reach her back, the young 
woman would exclaim, ' That relieves me. Courage, 
my brother ; strike harder, if you can.' The blows 
were struck on the naked skin, but without bruising 
or breaking it in the least. The convulsionary, after 
this, lay on the floor, and there was placed upon her 
a heavy plank on which stood a score or more of 
persons, weighing all together at least four thousand 
pounds. Then a flints tone, weighing twenty-two 
pounds, was hurled with full force a hundred times 
in succession upon her bosom. At each blow, the 
whole room shook, the floor trembled, and the spec- 
tators shuddered at the sound of the frightful blows. 
" There were other phenomena of a character no 
less extraordinary, but I pass them over, all of which 
were notorious, and witnessed by half, one writer 
says, all Paris. Hume says that they have all the 
authenticity that human testimony can give, and 
that we can deny them only on the ground that such 
things are absolutely impossible. Humanly impossi- 
ble I concede, but, as they are not of a character to 



SPIRIT-MANIFESTATIONS. 309 

come from God, I must believe them to be Satanic, 
and that the persons were really possessed and sus- 
tained by evil spirits, 

" The case of frequent occurrence among the lower 
class of the Lamas, related by M. Hue in his travels 
in Mongolia, Thibet, and China, is one that cannot 
be explained save on the ground of Satanic interven- 
tion, — that of a Lama, a sort of Boudhist monk, 
who opens his belly, takes out his entrails, and 
places them before him, and then returns immedi- 
ately to his former state. 

"< When the appointed hour has arrived,' says M. 
Hue, ' the whole multitude of pilgrims repair to the 
great court of the Larna convent, where an altar is 
erected. At length the Bokte makes his appearance ; 
he advances gravely amid the acclamations of the 
crowd, seats himself on the altar, and taking a cut- 
lass from his girdle, places it between his knees, 
while the crowd of Lamas, ranged in a circle at his 
feet, commence the terrible invocations that prelude 
this frightful ceremony. By degrees, as they pro- 
ceed in their recital, the Bokte seems to tremble in 
every limb, and gradually fall into strong convul- 
sions. Then the song of the Lamas becomes 
wilder and more animated, and the recitation is 
changed for cries and howlings. Suddenly the 
Bokte flings away the scarf which he has worn, 
snatches off his girdle, and with the sacred cutlass 
rips himself entirely open. As the blood gushes out, 
the multitude prostrate themselves before the horrid 



310 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

spectacle, and the sufferer is immediately interro- 
gated concerning future events and things concealed 
from human knowledge. His answers to these ques- 
, tions are regarded as oracles. 

" ' As soon as the devout curiosity of the pilgrims 
is satisfied, the Lamas resume their recitations and 
prayers ; and the Bokte, taking up in his right hand 
a quantity of his blood, carries it to his mouth, blows 
three times on it, and casts it, with a loud cry, into 
the air. He then passes his hand rapidly over his 
stomach, and it becomes whole as it was before, 
without the slightest trace being left of the diaboli- 
cal operation, with the exception of an extreme las- 
situde.' 

" Occurrences like these are not rare, and I could 
fill volumes with phenomena equally extraordinary, 
which I cannot deny, and which cannot be explained 
without the assumption of a superhuman agent, and 
I may add, a diabolical agent. Dupotet exhibits, by 
means of his magic ring, almost daily in Paris, the 
most extraordinary magic wonders, and he confesses 
that he does it by means of a mental evocation, and 
by virtue of a pact. 

" Now these, and facts like these, instructed as I 
am in the Christian faith, and holding it without 
any doubt, prove to me that the Satanic invasion, 
demonic possession, and obsession, are no fables, but 
facts not to be denied, though each particular case 
must stand on its own merits, and be received or 
rejected according to the evidence. In general I am 



SPIRIT-MANIFESTATIONS. 311 

slow to believe this or that particular case is dia- 
bolic, and I require clear and irrefragable proof, 
strong and perfectly reliable testimony. 

" The criteria of demonic invasion or obsession, 
as laid down by the Christian church, for the guid- 
ance of exorcists, are seven : 

1. Power of knowing the unexpressed thoughts of 
others. 

2. Understanding of unknown languages. 

3. Power of speaking unknown or foreign lan- 
guages. 

4. Knowledge of future events. 

5. Knowledge of things passing in distant places. 

6. Exhibition of superior physical strength. 

7. Suspension of the body in the air during a con- 
siderable time. 

" Now I find all these in the recent spirit-manifes- 
tations, clearly and distinctly testified to by such oc- 
cular witnesses as Dr. Dexter, Judge Edmands, and 
the Hon. N. P. Talmadge, not to mention any others. 
The Spiritualists or Spiritists do not deny, they assert 
that the manifestations they witness are strictly anal- 
ogous to the class of facts which have been always re- 
garded as Satanic. At first, the spirits communicated 
by rapping and moving furniture. But now, besides 
rapping mediums, there are writing mediums, seeing 
mediums, and speaking mediums. In these last 
three cases they admit the fact of spiritual invasion, 
and even call it possession. In the case of the 
speaking medium particularly, I find it contended 



312 THE SPIRIT- RAPPER. 

that, the spirit takes possession of the medium, gen- 
erally a woman, maltreats her at times, throws her 
down, gives her convulsions, and forces her to do 
things which she is unwilling to do, and compels 
her organs to utter words to which she has the 
greatest repugnance. 

" Hear Judge Edmands. ' I have frequently known 
mental questions answered, that is, questions merely 
framed in the mind of the interrogator, and not re- 
vealed by him or known to others. Preparatory to 
meeting a circle, I have sat down alone in my 
room, and carefully prepared a series of questions 
to be propounded, and I have been surprised to find 
my questions answered, and in the precise order 
in which I wrote them, without my even taking 
my memorandum out of my pocket, and when I 
knew not a person present even knew that I had 
prepared questions, much less what they were. My 
most secret thoughts, those which I never uttered 
to mortal man or woman, have been freely spoken 
to, as if I had uttered them. Purposes which I have 
privately entertained have been publicly revealed, 
and I have once and again been admonished that my 
every thought was known to, and could be disclosed 
by, the intelligence which was thus manifesting 
itself. 

"'I have heard the mediums use Greek, Latin, 
Spanish, and French, when I knew that they had no 
knowledge of any language but their own ; and it is 
a fact that can be attested by many, that often there 



SPIRIT-MANIFESTATIONS. 313 

has been speaking and writing in foreign languages 
and unknown tongues by those who were unac- 
quainted with either.' 

" Dr. Dexter is explicit to the same purpose. I 
need not multiply citations. The books of the spi- 
ritualists are full of instances in point. And as it is 
clear, from the phenomena presented, that the super- 
human intelligence and power manifested are not 
Divine, I can, as a rational man, only conclude that 
they are Satanic. I believe the persons engaged in 
the unhallowed intercourse are, to a great extent, in 
good faith, and have no suspicion that they are really 
dealing with devils." 

" I believe you are right," said I. " One thing is 
certain, that even in mesmerizing, there is always an 
implicit mental evocation, and without it, I venture 
1 to say, no one was ever able to exhibit the mesmeric 
phenomena. The effort of the will which the mes- 
merizer makes, whether he uses passes or not, is at 
bottom an evocation, a calling up of the mesmeric 
spirit; and he who set the spirits a rapping, you 
may be sure, had made a virtual, if not an explicit, 
a tacit, if not an express compact with the devil. 
But there is one thing farther I would have you ex- 
plain, that is, the connection of spirit-manifestations 
with so-called animal magnetism." 

" That is a great subject, and would lead me too 
far for my time and for your strength. There are 
different spirits that besiege us or invade us, but 
27 



314 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

those that usually do so probably, after the language 
of St. Paul, swarm in the air, and inhabit what the 
ancients called Ether. Many of the fathers, and 
some later doctors of the Church have believed 
that they are created with and inhabit fine ethereal 
bodies. However this may be, they no doubt, in 
their operation, assume such bodies, and conse- 
quently find their operations facilitated by a subtile 
material medium, such as the mesmeric fluid. Hence 
I do not regard mesmerism itself as Satanic, but as 
facilitating demonic invasion. 

" There is also in man what the ancients called 
the umbra, the shade, which is not the soul, nor the 
body in its mere outward sense. It is, as it were, 
the interior lining of the body, capable, to a certain 
extent, of being detached from it, without however 
losing its relation to it. Hence the phenomena of 
bi-location, so frequently noticed in the annals of 
sorcery or witchcraft, can be conceived as possible. 
The body lies in a trance, and the soul w r ith its um- 
bra is able to carry on, by the assistance of the 
demon, its deviltry, even at a distance ; and the 
wounds given to the shade will reappear on the 
body, as has been often observed. 

u But you must excuse me from entering further 
into this intricate and mysterious subject. Many 
ingenious theories have been devised, but I wish to 
deal as little with them as possible. There is a 
laudable curiosity, there is also an unlawful curi- 



SPIRIT-MANIFESTATIONS. 315 

osity, and there is a science which is not desirable. 
I have been obliged, in the way of my calling, to 
study it; but I never touch it, without regretting its 
necessity. Spare me. The knowledge that cannot 
enlighten, that cannot aid virtue, and only leads 
astray, should never be sought." 



316 



CHAPTER XXII. 



SUPERSTITION. 



I had, almost from the first, suspected Mr. Mer- 
ton's conclusion, and should never for a moment 
have doubted it, had I not grown up in the disbelief 
of evil spirits. Science, or what passes for science, 
had long denied all supernatural and all superhuman 
intervention in the affairs of mankind ; and I, like 
the majority of my contemporaries, had grown up a 
complete Epicurean. There was, perhaps, a God 
who had created the world, but having created it, 
and impressed upon it certain fixed and invariable 
laws, he left it to take care of itself. I denied his 
providence, or, what is the same thing, resolved it 
into the uniform and inflexible laws of nature, and 
like my friends of the French Eclectic school, saw 
the Divine intervention only in the necessary and 
immutable elements of human history. God was 
for me simply Fate, Invincible Necessity, and there- 
fore no free person, no object of reverence, love, or 
worship. 

Having excluded Providence, I necessarily rejected 
the ministry of angels. I resolved all nature into a 
collection of forces operative by intrinsic and neces- 
sary laws. Man is one of these forces, neither the 



SUPERSTITION. 317 

strongest nor the weakest. In his own intrinsic 
strength he is not much, but by placing himself in 
a right position with regard to the other forces of 
nature, he may make them work in him and for 
him, and thus increase his strength by the whole of 
theirs, as the millwright makes use of the force of 
the stream to turn his mill, the inventor of the mag- 
netic telegraph of the lightning to convey his mes- 
sages, or as the sailor avails himself of the wind to 
propel his ship. _ 

Belief in the free or voluntary intervention of the 
Divinity in human affairs, I had been taught by re- 
ceived science to regard as superstition. Religion, 
Christian or Mahometan, Jewish or Pagan, inas- 
much as it always presupposes the supernatural, or 
the intervention of God extra naturam, or otherwise 
than in and through the laws of nature, was super- 
stition. The ministry of angels was superstition. 
The assertion of Satanic interposition was, beyond 
all doubt, superstition. The facts which had led 
to the supposition of Divine providence, and of the 
ministry of good and evil angels, were, no doubt, 
real ; but ignorant of the laws of nature, men had 
misinterpreted them, and assigned them causes which 
are unreal. All religion has, I said, its origin in 
ignorance, and necessarily recedes as science ad- 
vances. Hence I felt that it would be only a proof 
of my ignorance and superstition to ascribe the mys- 
terious phenomena to any spiritual or supernatural 
agency. 

27* 



318 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Even after the explanations of Mr. Merton, and 
after my reason was silenced, I was unwilling to 
abandon my prejudices, and accept his conclusion. 
What, should I, in this nineteenth century, in this 
age of genuine science, which has done so much to 
roll back the clouds and dissipate the darkness which 
enveloped past ages, consent to adopt the vulgar be- 
lief of the sixteenth century, when men were but 
just escaping from the thraldom of Romanism — of 
the thirteenth century, when they were but just be- 
ginning to emerge from barbarism — of the first 
century, when still buried in the night of heathen- 
ism? My pride of science, my pride of intellect, 
revolted at the thought. What ridicule would not 
be showered upon me by the wits and free-thinkers 
of the age, should it be known, or even suspected ! 

I hesitated long, for I saw at once, that if I ad- 
mitted the existence and influence of Satan, I must 
go farther, and concede the Christian mysteries. I 
must abandon liberal Christianity, deny the sup- 
posed progress of recent times in religious notions, 
and return to old-fashioned orthodoxy. Perhaps I 
should find it necessary to go even further back than 
the orthodoxy of my own country. This was no 
pleasant thought. To unlearn all I had learned, to 
regard all my most cherished convictions as so many 
delusions, to become in reality as a little child, and 
to commence life anew, as Jesus Christ taught we 
must do, if we would enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, was too humiliating to be contemplated with 






SUPERSTITION. 319 



pleasure even on my dying bed, and when the world 
was fast disappearing from my view. What would 
have been the result of my internal struggle, if I 
had been left wholly to myself, I will not pretend to 
say. But I was not so left. Mr. Merton was with 
me almost daily, and seemed always to read my 
thoughts before I expressed them, and to compre- 
hend my difficulties. 

" Your great mistake," said he to me one day, 
when the subject came up, "is in supposing that 
religion is the offspring of ignorance, and stands 
opposed to science. Your assumption that man be- 
gan in ignorance, and has attained to science only 
by long and patient research and laborious experi- 
ment, is at best gratuitous. Some things, of course, 
have been acquired only in process of time. Man 
has made progress in the knowledge of all that 
which he himself has done, or has suffered ; but 
nothing requires you to assume that his progress in 
knowledge is any thing more than progress in the 
knowledge of his own doing and suffering. It is 
not likely that Adam knew the history of the battle 
of Pharsalia, of Hastings, Bovines, or Waterloo ; 
it is not probable that he was acquainted with the 
steam-engine, the cotton-gin, the spinning-jenny, the 
power-loom, or the lightning telegraph. But he may 
have received from his Maker, as religion teaches, a 
knowledge of the nature and causes of things, and 
of his moral relations and duties, equal to that pos- 
sessed by the most enlightened of his posterity. 



320 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" Historically considered," proceeded Mr. Merton, 
" the earliest belief of mankind was the existence, 
unity, and free providence of God — a belief in strict 
accordance with the deductions of genuine science 
in every age. Every language under heaven bears 
indelible traces of that belief, and would be unintel- 
ligible, absolutely insignificant, if it were denied. 
Yet all languages are radically one and the same, 
and must, in some form, have been given superna- 
turally to man, for man speaks only as he has learned 
to speak ; and it would have required language to 
invent language." 

" But if all languages are radically the same, how 
do you explain their manifest differences?" I asked. 

" That is a question which I leave to the philolo- 
gists ; but they, I believe, very easily prove that 
these differences are not radical, and that they are 
due principally to the differences of pursuits, of cir- 
cumstances, temperaments, and pronunciation of dif- 
ferent tribes havifig little or no intercourse with one 
another. However great or small they may be, or 
whatever their causes, it has been proved that they 
are only modifications of one and the same original 
tongue." 

" But you know," said I, " that religion is progres- 
sive, and that the earliest religion of mankind was 
a gross fetichism, a worship of animals and inani- 
mate things. From that gross superstition we can 
trace its gradual purification and progress towards 
the sublime monotheism of Moses, Socrates, Plato, 



SUPERSTITION. 321 

and Jesus, moulded by the Church fathers into 
Christian theology." 

" I know no such thing," replied Mr. Merton, " and 
St. Paul, who was a good philosopher as well as an 
inspired apostle, tells us that men left the true God 
to worship creeping things and four-footed beasts. 
The monotheism you speak of is historically older 
than the fetichism of which you would make it a 
development. What you are pleased to call the mo- 
notheism of Moses, was older than that lawgiver. 
Moses, under Divine inspiration and direction, found- 
ed the Jewish state, or commonwealth, and instituted 
the Jewish worship, but he did not introduce a new 
faith or theology. The faith or doctrine he taught 
concerning God and moral duty, was that of the 
old patriarchs, and the same which had been held 
from Adam. Christian faith and theology have come 
down to us through the line of the patriarchs and 
the Jews, not through that of the Gentiles, and, if a 
development at all, is not a development of heathen- 
ism, but of the earlier patriarchal religion preserved 
in the synagogue. Hence St. Augustine says, that 
faith has not changed ; as believed the fathers, so we 
believe — only they believed in a Christ who was to 
come, and we believe in a Christ who has come. 

" Then, again, the monotheism, if monotheism it 
was, of Socrates and Plato, was not a development 
or gradual purification of fetichism or of the gross 
forms of nature-worship. They themselves tell you 
as much, and always claim to be restorers, not inno 



322 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

vators. In asserting the unity of God, they profess 
always to revive the belief or the wisdom of the 
ancients. No one can have studied the various 
forms of heathenism without finding in them ample 
evidence that they are not primitive formations. 
They all bear witness to a type which is not in 
themselves — a type from which they have departed, 
not a type which they are approaching or realizing. 
They bear the deep traces of corruption, and are 
evidently travesties of the old patriarchal or primi- 
tive religion, without a knowledge of which they are 
absolutely inexplicable. The memory of the loss of 
its primitive perfection, all heathenism retains in its 
heart. All heathenism is imprinted with profound 
grief for a lost good, and never does it show signs 
of a true joy. There is sadness in all its rites, 
gay and joyous as it tries to make them. Its joy 
is a drunken joy, and its boisterous mirth is the 
wild laugh of the maniac. But over the whole 
of heathenism, even in its grossest forms, there 
hovers always the primitive monotheism. It re- 
tains always some reminiscence of the belief in one 
supreme God, Father of gods and men. Anax- 
agoras, Socrates, Plato, and others, acquainted with 
the Jewish belief, and meditating on this remi- 
niscence, undoubtedly rose to sublimer and more 
rational views of the Divinity than those which 
were entertained by the vulgar ; but this says no- 
thing in favor of that gradual development and 
purification of heathenism, which you and a well 



SUPERSTITION. 323 

known modern school assert, and assert without one 
single fact to support you. 

" You must rely on history," continued Mr. Mer- 
ton, " for your theory professes to be historical, and 
to sustain itself by facts. But history has been 
tolerably authentic for some thousands of years. 
How happens it, if your theory be correct, that we 
find no instance of this gradual development and 
purification of heathenism ? In all the cases where 
the history can be traced, it is undeniable that the 
purest or the least deformed state of any heathen su- 
perstition is its earliest ; and the grossest, the most 
corrupt and revolting, is always its latest. Nothing 
in this world ever reforms itself, and the inevitable 
tendency of all error, as of all vice, is from bad to 
worse. Compare the popular religion of Rome under 
the kings, with the popular religion under the pagan 
emperors, and you will find this proved. 

" Indeed, my friend, your whole theory is false. 
Never yet has religion receded before the advance of 
true science, and religion, as you well say, has always 
asserted the supernatural, the interposition of God 
in human affairs, extra naturam. Always, too, has 
it asserted the existence of good and bad angels, 
and their intervention on the one hand by Divine 
command, and on the other by Divine permission, in 
the affairs of mankind. This belief of all ages is 
itself a phenomenon to be explained, accounted for; 
and you will find it impossible to explain it, or 
account for it, without admitting its substantial 



324 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

truth. Men may err in supposing a supernatural or 
superhuman intervention where none takes place, 
and undoubtedly they have so erred time and again ; 
but they could not have so erred if they had not 
already had the idea or belief of such interposition. 
Whence comes that idea or belief? If that is false, 
explain whence comes the general error before the 
particular? A general a priori error is impossible. 
All error is in the misapplication of truth. A general 
error is nothing but a generalization by way of in- 
duction of particular errors, or misapplications of 
truth to particulars, and is therefore necessarily sub- 
sequent to them. If there were in reality no true 
religion, there could be no false religion, as if there 
were no genuine, there could be no counterfeit coin. 
Always is the true prior to the false ; and how then 
could mankind come to assert a false supernatural 
interposition, if they had no prior belief in a true 
supernatural interposition, or believe in such an in- 
terposition, if no such interposition had ever taken 
place ? " 

" But how will you clear this belief in Satanic 
interposition from the charge of superstition?" I 
asked. 

" Superstition, my friend, is a word oftener used," 
replied Mr. Merton, " than understood. The heathen 
religions were all superstitions, I grant, because they 
all ascribed effects to unreal or inadequate causes. 
To believe in the existence of good and bad angels 
is not superstition, if good and bad angels really ex- 



SUPERSTITION. 325 

ist, any more than it is to believe in the existence of 
men and women, horses or oxen. Where there is no 
error, there is no superstition. Suppose a fairy really 
to exist, there is no superstition in believing the fact. 
Suppose the ministry of angels to be a fact, there is 
nothing superstitious, unreasonable, or unscientific 
in believing it, or in ascribing to that ministry real 
effects. Suppose fallen angels or wicked spirits do 
really exist, do really tempt us, and by Divine per- 
mission, do really besiege or possess us, there is no 
superstition in believing it, in taking the proper pre- 
cautions against them, or the proper measures to 
disperse or expel them. If the real origin of the 
phenomena we have been considering is diabolical, 
nothing is more reasonable than to believe it ; and 
to ascribe them to natural causes, would be unscien- 
tific, and itself a sort of superstition. Undoubtedly, 
the spirit-rappers, or spiritualists, as they call them- 
selves, are superstitious. What they call spiritual- 
ism is rank superstition, because they believe the 
phenomena are produced by the shades or spirits of 
the dead, and the word superstition was originally 
used, I believe, to imply a belief in, and a dread of, 
the influence of the departed on the living; but to 
ascribe them to fallen angels, if such they are, is no 
I superstition at all, for then they are ascribed to an 
adequate cause, and to their real cause. 

" There are two opposite errors," concluded Mr. 
Merton, "both equally hostile to religion and to 
good sense, — superstition and irreligion. Each is an 
28 



326 THE SPIfclT-RAPPER. 

abuse, as the schoolmen say, an excess in a contrary 
direction ; and unhappily, the tendency of most men 
is to one or the other. Nothing is more certain than 
that in every age much superstition has been con- 
nected with the doctrine I have contended for." 

" That," said I, " is what makes me dread and 
hesitate to accept it." 

" I know," Mr. Merton replied, "all that you would 
say on that score. I have myself read history, and, 
no less than you, been shocked by its abuses. But 
there is no truth that cannot be or that has not been 
abused. I am as much opposed to these abuses as 
you are. It will not do to suppose that every event 
a little out of the range of our ordinary experience, 
is a miracle, or effected, if good, by Angelic, if bad, 
by Satanic agency. Every time a murrain prevails 
among the cattle, it will not do to ascribe it to sor- 
cery, or when the butter will not come, to lay the 
blame upon Robin Goodfellow. The tendency to 
do so is undoubtedly a superstitious tendency. But 
the contrary, or Sadducean tendency, to believe in 
neither angel nor spirit, is even more dangerous. I 
do not believe every tale of witchcraft I hear, and I 
am slow to believe in actual Satanic invasion in any 
particular case that may be alleged. The Church 
has always asserted the possibility of such invasion, 
but she does not permit a resort to exorcism on every 
apparent instance of it. She demands previous con- 
sultation, long examination, and the judgment of 
the most rigid science. While the greatest caution 



SUPERSTITION. »327 

should be exercised as to every case of supposed 
actual Satanic invasion, we should guard equally 
against running into the contrary error of denying 
that such invasion ever takes place. An unreasona- 
ble scepticism is as far removed from true wisdom 
and virtue, as an unreasonable belief. Modern sci- 
ence is sceptical ; and it is more important just now 
to guard against scepticism and its irreligion, than 
it is to guard against superstition. 

" Yet we deceive ourselves, if we suppose that 
the scepticism of science has penetrated far into the 
popular mind, even in our own country. Science 
can never root out popular superstitions. While 
the few laugh at the superstition of the vulgar, that 
superstition, though modified perhaps as to its forms, 
continues to thrive, and attains, not unfrequently, 
even a more vigorous growth. The old popular su- 
perstitions, brought hither by our ancestors, still live 
in the heart of the people, and in forms as gross and 
as revolting as in the seventeenth century. Super- 
stition is cured, not by a sceptical science, denying 
altogether the spirit-world, but by religion, which, 
while it recognizes that world, teaches us to draw 
accurately the line of demarcation between genuine 
and counterfeit spirit-manifestations. The people 
cannot live in absolute irreligion ; and where they 
have not religion, they will have superstition. The 
tendency of modern science is to destroy all reli- 
gious faith, and therefore to promote, indirectly, the 
very evil it proposes to cure, — the common effect 



328 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

of all unbaptized science, as of all unbaptized phi- 
lanthropy." 

" There is some truth in that, I must own," I re- 
marked. " I know not why it is so, but every effort 
made, although with the purest and best intentions 
in the world, outside of Christianity, seem always to 
fail, or to end only in aggravating the very evils 
they were intended to cure. There is less real liberty 
in France to-day than there was before the meeting 
of the States-General in May, 1789. The revolu- 
tions which, during the last sixty or seventy years, 
have so terribly raged on European soil, though 
made in behalf of liberty or of popular representa- 
tion, have resulted only in depriving each nation in 
which they have taken place of its former too feeble 
checks on power, and in rendering the monarchy 
more absolute. The same may be said in principle 
of all our efforts at philanthropic reform on a smaller 
scale." 

" Undoubtedly," replied Mr. Merton ; " and the 
reason is, that the glory of whatever is good is due 
to God, and he will suffer no plans to succeed that 
would rob him of his due. He has himself given us 
his law, and provided us the means of salvation, 
temporal and eternal ; and whosoever seeks salvation 
by any other means, or in contempt of that law, 
must fail, and shamefully fail." 



329 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



DIFFICULTIES. 



" What you say, Mr. Merton," said Jack, " may 
be very plausible, but you will never convince me 
that Almighty God, the loving Father of us all, 
would ever permit his children to be exposed to Sa- 
tanic invasion. It would impeach either his wisdom 
and love, or his power." 

" Why more than his permission of the same 
vexations and afflictions by any other agency ? " 
asked Mr. Merton, very quietly. " The facts, the 
phenomena themselves are undeniable, and must be 
produced by some agency, and by Divine permission 
too. While they remain the same, I cannot see 
how their production by Satan, any more than their 
production by some other created or secondary cause, 
is incompatible with the Divine perfection." 

" I do not pretend to be able to say how that is," 
replied Jack, " but I will never believe that God will 
allow the devil, or any other being subject to his 
power, to have such influence over the children he 
loves. It is contrary to common sense. It is non- 
sense, absurdity, blasphemy." 

"I am very much of Jack's opinion," interposed 

28* 



330 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Dr. Corning, who had for a long time ceased to take 
any part in our conversations. " If there is a God, a 
God who is Lord Omnipotent, the devil, if devil 
there be, must be subject to him, and unable to do 
any thing without his permission. Can any rea- 
sonable man believe that God would permit the 
devil to harass and afflict, besiege and possess his 
children ? Would a human father permit, if he could 
help it, an enemy to exercise a corresponding power 
over his own offspring? God is love, and love 
worketh no ill, and, as far as in its power to prevent, 
suffers no ill to be worked to any one." 

"All that," replied Mr. Merton, "would be very 
conclusive, if the facts or phenomena did not exist to 
give it a flat denial. Here are the facts, and what- 
ever origin you assign them, they remain, in them- 
selves considered, the same. You assign insanity as 
their origin. Be it so. But wx>uld a God who is 
love, who is wisdom, who is omnipotence, suffer his 
children to be afflicted with so grievous a disease as 
insanity, one so terrible and so humiliating in its 
effects ? Insanity must be subject to his dominion ; 
and why then does he suffer any one to become in- 
sane?" 

" Many of these facts, as you call them, are the 
result of mere jugglery and sheer imposture," an- 
swered the Doctor, " and do not deserve a moment's 
consideration." 

" Be it so," replied Mr. Merton. " But how can 
God permit such jugglery and imposture ? " 



DIFFICULTIES. 331 

" They are the works of man, and the results of 
evil passions," promptly replied Dr. Corning. 

" Very good," said Mr. Merton ; " but whence 
these evil passions ? and how can God, consistently 
with his perfections, permit them to produce such 
pernicious effects ? You see, my dear Doctor, turn 
which way you will, take what ground you please, 
your argument can always be retorted. As far as 
the Divine perfection is concerned, it makes no 
difference, since the facts really exist, whether you 
ascribe them to Satanic invasion or to insanity, to 
the evil passions of man, or to the elemental forces 
or inherent laws of nature ; for, on any of these 
suppositions, you ascribe them to a created cause, 
dependent on God as first cause for its very exist- 
ence, and therefore a cause that cannot operate 
without his permission. The whole question resolves 
itself into the old question, then, of the origin of evil. 
Evil certainly could not exist without the permission 
of God ; and yet you yourself concede that evil does 
exist. How can God, consistently with his perfec- 
tions, permit it ? This is the question ; and, if he 
can permit it at all, he can as well permit it when 
produced by one agent, as when produced by an- 
other." 

" But that," said Dr. Corning, " is a question for 
you to answer, as well as for me." 

" Not in the case before us," rejoined Mr. Merton, 
" because your objection concedes the existence of 
evil, and only denies it as the work of a particular 



SS2 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

agent. But let that pass. I can answer the ques- 
tion only in the light of Christian theology. Ac- 
cording to that theology, there is no real evil but 
sin ; and sin is always voluntary on the part of the 
sinner. God chose to create men and angels free 
moral agents, that they might be capable of virtue, 
and of meriting the rewards of obedience. He could 
not so create us without making us capable of abus- 
ing our freedom, for obedience is not and cannot be 
meritorious where there is no power of disobedience, 
as disobedience is not culpable where there is no 
power of obedience. Hence the saints in heaven, 
having no longer the power of disobedience, do not 
merit by their obedience, and simply enjoy the re- 
wards of their obedience in their state of probation 
on earth. If any do not obtain the rewards of obe- 
dience, the fault is their own, and they have no one 
to blame but themselves. Their failure is volun- 
tary ; they fail only because they choose to fail. 

" In regard to the Satanic vexations," continued 
Mr. Merton, "we must bear in mind that Satan has 
no power to harm us — not even a hair of our head — 
against our free will or deliberate assent. It is 
always in our pow r er to resist him, and even to turn 
his machinations and vexations against him, and to 
make them occasions of merit. ' Count it all joy, 
my brethren,' says the blessed Apostle St. James, 
4 when ye fall into divers temptations,' that is, trials 
and afflictions. The evil is not in the temptation 
even to sin, but in the free, voluntary assent; it is 



DIFFICULTIES. 333 

not in the vexations and afflictions, obsessions and 
possessions, but in our voluntary abuse of them, or 
failure to turn them to a good account. God suffers 
no one to be tempted or tried or harassed beyond 
what he can bear. Always is his grace sufficient 
for all straits. Always stands firm his promise, ' My 
grace is sufficient for thee ; ' and this sustains and 
consoles us in the midst of our greatest distress, our 
severest trials, and our most perfect abandonment. 
We may always, if we will, come forth from the 
furnace of affliction purified as gold tried in the fire. 
It depends on our own free will whether the vexa- 
tions of Satan shall do us good or harm. If we 
choose, we can always prevent his wiles from doing 
us evil, and derive profit from his malice. This is a 
sufficient answer to the objection drawn from the 
perfection of God. It is no impeachment of Divine 
Love to let loose an enemy against us for our good, 
or to give us an opportunity to acquire merit, any 
more than it is to Divine Justice to permit an enemy 
to harass us as a punishment for our sins. Satanic 
temptations and invasions are sometimes permitted 
for the one purpose, and sometimes for the other, 
and in either case are perfectly compatible with the 
attributes of God." 

" I think I can understand that," I remarked, " and 
I think also I can see in it a manifestation of Divine 
love. God, in permitting these vexations against 
the wicked, manifests his justice; but in permitting 
them against the good, he manifests his love, and 



334 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

turns the malice of Satan against himself. What 
Satan intends shall work our ruin, by the grace of 
God is made to work our higher perfection ; and 
thus God overcomes Satan by educing good from 
evil." 

« Undoubtedly," added Mr. Merton, " God often 
permits Satan to afflict the faithful, to prove them, — 
sometimes to humble them, to chastise their spi- 
ritual pride, and to become their occasion of rising 
to a purer and, loftier virtue ; and in such cases we 
may say he educes good from evil, and makes the 
malice of Satan redound to his own glory. In the 
cases where he permits Satan to harass by way of 
penalty, he equally makes the Satanic malice re- 
dound to his glory, for God's glory is no less inter- 
ested, so to speak, in justice than in love. There is 
no discrepancy between the Divine attributes ; and 
the manifestation of his justice is no less essential 
to his glory, or the good of his creatures, than the 
manifestation of his love or mercy. The beginning 
of love is the love of justice, equity, right." 

" But be that as it may," said Jack, " I have heard 
it contended by theologians that Satan has been 
bound since the coming of Christ, and has no longer 
any power, since Christ triumphed over him on the 
cross, to besiege or to possess men, as it is supposed 
he had before." 

" I am not answerable," replied Mr. Merton, " for 
what you may have heard theologians maintain. I 
concede that our Lord, on his part, triumphed over 



DIFFICULTIES. 335 

Satan on the cross; I also concede, that since the 
coming of our Lord, and the spread of Christianity, 
the power of Satan has been greatly curtailed ; but 
I know no authority for saying that he does not 
continue to go about ' as a roaring lion, seeking 
whom he may devour,' or that he has not power 
still to besiege men, and literally take possession of 
them. The Church, whether Catholic or Protestant, 
has a form of exorcism, and continues to practise it, 
The faithful are daily winning victories over him, 
and if God gives them the grace of perseverance, 
they will finally overcome him, and obtain a tri- 
umph ; but their warfare with him ceases not so long 
as they remain in the flesh. Satan, it is true, has no 
power to harm us against our deliberate consent, 
and it is far easier to resist him now, than it was 
before our Lord died on the cross, because grace is 
more abundant ; but still he may besiege and actu- 
ally possess the holiest of men, the most devoted 
followers of the Lord, at least so far as it is given to 
men to judge. He cannot harm us without our own 
fault ; but he may vex, afflict, even possess us, with- 
out any blame on our part, as a man may become 
sick, or even insane, without any fault of his own. 

"Out of the Christian society," continued Mr. 
Merton, "where there are wanting the means which 
Christians have to defend themselves against his 
approaches, and to drive him away, his power is, no 
doubt, far greater. Among Mahometans, and among 
the pagan tribes of Asia, Africa, and America, inhabit- 



336 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

ing a land which has, so to speak, never been bap- 
tized, or sprinkled with holy water, his power is still 
very great ; and, if we may credit the well-attested 
reports of our missionaries, almost as great as ever. 
He recovers his power, too, in Christian nations in 
proportion as they recede from the faith and piety of 
the Gospel, and fall anew into heathenism." 

" But there are some difficulties, under the point 
of view of jurisprudence, in the way of your doc- 
trine of Satanic invasion," interposed Jack. " Sup- 
pose a man possessed by a devil kills another, or 
commits some act which the law regards as a crime, 
is the man guilty, and to be punished?" 

" You are a lawyer," replied Mr. Merton, " and 
nothing is more natural than that you should ask 
that question. The difficulties you suggest, how- 
ever, are no greater on the supposition of Satanic 
invasion than on any other theory. They are the 
same, whether we contend that the person is sub- 
jected by Satan or by mesmerism, by a primitive or 
elemental force of nature, or by what some mani- 
graphs call madness without delirium, or instinctive 
insanity. The question turns on the fact whether 
the man is involuntarily and completely subjugated, 
or whether he retains the exercise of his free will ; 
or, in other words, whether the actions are really his, 
or those of the power that oppresses or subjugates 
him. For myself, I think our courts are beginning 
to adopt a very dangerous doctrine with regard to 
insanity, and ate admitting the plea of insanity 



DIFFICULTIES. 337 

where it ought not to be entertained. In an East- 
ern city, not long since, it was gravely contended by 
counsel, that a man must be held to be insane and 
irresponsible, because his crimes were so aggravated. 
Under this lies a dangerous principle, which, in its 
development, will lead to the conclusion that all great 
criminals are insane and irresponsible. But in re- 
gard to another class of cases, cases in which there 
obviously is no inebriety, ill health, or delirium, and 
yet in which the person seems to himself to be irre- 
sistibly urged by a foreign power, against his will, 
to the commission of horrible acts, I think the law, 
or the practice of the courts, is quite too severe. I 
take a case cited to my hand by a respectable French 
writer, that of a father who killed his young son. 
The father was an honest, temperate, and industri- 
ous man, of a mild and affectionate disposition, and 
it is clear that he loved his son with great tender- 
ness. 

" ' The night in which I did the deed,' says the 
unhappy father, ' I was so agitated, that I trembled 
in my whole body I am unable to con- 
ceive how I could commit a crime so atrocious. I 
was so agitated, so troubled in my brain, and felt 
something within me so irresistible, that I was 
obliged to commit the deed. I was fasting. I was 
not sick; and I am wholly unable to explain how it 
was possible for me to do it. Twice before I had 
had the horrible inclination to kill my child. The 
first time was last winter, about six weeks before 
29 



338 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Easter. I was at work making a sledge, and my 
boy, as usual, was playing near me. In his playful- 
ness, he climbed upon my back, and clasped me 
round the neck. My wife, thinking he would hinder 
me from working, called him away ; but I loved him 
so much, that I patiently endured all his frolicsome 
tricks. I took him upon my knees to play with 
him, and in that very moment I thought I heard a 
voice within me, saying, c You cannot help it. Your 
child must die, and you must kill him.' I was 
startled, seized with fear, my heart palpitated, and 
I instantly set him down, rushed out of the room, 
and went to the mill, where I stayed till nightfall, 
till my evil thought passed away. 

" ' The second time was one morning a few days 
before Easter. My wife was busy with the affairs 
of the house, and I was lying on the bed, with my 
child near me. He asked me for some bread, and I 
gave him a cake, which he eat with great pleasure. 
At that moment, as I was watching him with tender 
affection, I thought I heard again a voice within me, 
saying, in a low tone, < You must kill him. ' I shud- 
dered at myself, experienced violent palpitations, and 
felt a heavy oppression within my breast. I instantly 
jumped from the bed, and ran out of the house. I 
began saying my prayers, went to the stable, and 
busied myself with various labors, and did all in my 
power to drive away the evil thoughts that beset 
me. I finally succeeded, but not till midday, in re- 
gaining the mastery of myself, and in recovering my 



DIFFICULTIES. 339 

tranquillity. In neither of these cases was I drunk, 
or had been for many weeks previous : nor was I at 
the third access, when I took the life of my child.'* 

a Now here was a man who was not sick, who 
was not in liquor, who was not delirious, who was 
evidently a mild and loving father, and who yet, in 
consequence of an impression, killed his child, whom 
evidently he loved with all a father's fondness. 
This man the courts condemn as a horrid mur- 
derer." 

"And why not?" said Jack. "It is evident his 
free will remained. Twice he resisted the tempta- 
tion, and regained the mastery of himself; and 
nothing proves that he might not have done so the 
third time, if he had done his best." 

" It is possible," replied Mr. Merton, " and there- 
fore I do not say the man was absolutely innocent. 
But we see he did struggle against the evil thought, 
and twice successfully ; and he yielded even at last 
only from an impression, all but irresistible at the 
moment, and therefore he cannot be said to have 
had the full possession of his freedom. In proportion 
as his power of external resistance was diminished 
by the impression, or the mysterious influence that 
acted on him, was diminished his responsibility. 
He who yields only to a powerful temptation, is less 
guilty than he who does the same deed under only a 
slight or feeble temptation. The courts should take 

* Pneumatalogie des Esprits, p. 1 86 et seq. 



340 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

cognizance of the strength of the impression under 
which the man acts, and take into the account the 
more or less resistance that was possible. If the 
man succumbs only after a long and severe struggle, 
that should go to mitigate his guilt. 

" Dr. Cazeauvielh relates the case of a woman 
who attempted to kill her infant sleeping in the 
cradle. 'I am,' said she to the doctor, 'the most 
miserable of beings. Never was anybody like me. 
The other day I approached the cradle, and I looked 
upon my darling. Fearing I should do him harm, I 
went away to the house of my neighbor. Then, 
in spite of myself, I returned, for something seemed 
to push me. I went near my infant, and attempted 
to choke it with my hands, but my legs failed me, 
and I became senseless.' This woman, Dr. Ca- 
zeauvielh tells us, loved her relations and her child, 
and her intellectual faculties were not injured. It is 
true he regards her as insane ; but how can there be 
insanity, with the full possession of the intellectual 
faculties? She struggled against the something that 
pushed her, and had a horror of the crime ; the law 
ought, therefore, to treat her with indulgence, yet it 
does not, because there really is here no delirium. 
In the middle ages, which you regard as so barbar- 
ous and cruel, she would not have been held respon- 
sible, because her act would have been explained 
as the result of a foreign power, which for the time 
being overcame her resistance, and pushed her to do 
that for which she had a natural horror. 



DIFFICULTIES. 341 

" Yet a difference should no doubt be made be- 
tween cases like these, where the unhappy person 
commits a deed for which he has a natural horror, 
and against which he struggles, and those in which 
the criminal, so to speak, has a natural relish for his 
crime, delights, and persists in it. Take the case of 
Gilles Gamier, which occupied the attention of all 
France in the reign of Louis the Thirteenth. c This 
man-wolf,' (loup-garou,) says Bodin, ' carried away 
a girl from ten to twelve years of age, killed her 
with his hands and teeth, and eat the flesh from her 
thighs and arms. Some time afterwards he strangled 
a boy ten years old, and eat his flesh. Still later he 
killed another boy, from twelve to thirteen, with the 
intention of eating him, but was prevented.' He 
was arrested, convicted, and burnt alive. There was 
here no insanity; the horrid deeds were all avowed 
with the minutest circumstances, the intention was 
express, and the crime was repeated and persisted 
in. I cannot regard this monster as innocent, for I 
cannot discover that he resisted or struggled against 
the diabolical impulse. 

" Take the case of Leger, a recent case, related 
by Dr. Cazeauvielh, from the monster's own confes- 
sions. He lived in a cave, and had an unnatural crav- 
ing to feed on human flesh. One day he perceived 
a little girl, ran to her, passed a handkerchief around 
her body, threw her upon his back, plunged into 
the woods and hastened to his cave, where he killed 
and buried her. Arrested three days after, he im- 

29* 



342 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

mediately told his name, where he lived, and said 
that having received a blow on his head, he had 
left his country and his family. In his prison he 
related how he had lived in caverns in the rocks. 
' Wretch,' said the physician to him, ' you have eaten 
the heart of this little girl. Confess the truth.' He 
then answered in trembling, ' Yes, I did so, but not 
all at once.' After that he sought no longer to con- 
ceal his crimes, and with great coolness and indiffer- 
ence related a long series of horrible deeds which 
he had committed. He revealed them, even to the 
minutest particulars; he produced the proofs, and 
pointed out to the court the place of the crime, and 
the manner in which it had been consummated. 
The judge had no need to question him, for he him- 
self disclosed all of his own accord. On the trial, 
his features wore a mild and placid aspect. He 
seemed quite unconcerned and insensible, except 
his face assumed an air of gayety and satisfaction 
during the reading of the indictment. After about 
half an hour's deliberation, the court rejected the 
plea of insanity, and declared him guilty of homi- 
cide, with premeditation and lying in wait. He 
heard his sentence with the same placid indifference, 
and was executed a few days after. This seems to 
me to prove that the middle ages were not more 
severe than we are to-day." 

" But Leger," said Dr. Corning, u was evidently a 
madman. Georget is right in saying that he was a 
madman, because none but a madman would say 



DIFFICULTIES. 343 

that he had been led to commit murder by a blind 
and irresistible will." 

" That might do to say, if we were certain of the 
truth of the materialistic doctrines taught at Paris 
some forty or fifty years ago, but which are now 
generally rejected, Dr. Cazeauvielh, however, con- 
cedes that persons of this description, without being 
deprived by their madness of free will, are yet car- 
ried away, driven onward by an idea, by something 
indefinable, which is precisely what theologians mean 
by obsession. The court decided correctly, I think, 
in rejecting the plea of insanity in the case of the 
monster Leger, and in condemning him to death, 
though evidently under Satanic influence when he 
committed his horrible and disgusting crimes — 
crimes which recall the Ghouls of the Arabian 
Nights — because there was no struggle of the hu- 
man person against the invading spirit. 

" Satan can by Divine permission enter our bodies, 
compel, as it were, the human person to stand aside, 
and use our organs himself, and do whatever he 
pleases with them ; but he cannot annihilate the hu- 
man person, or take from the soul free will. Always 
is it in the power of the possessed to resist, morally 
and effectually, the evil intentions of the devil. The 
possessed retains his own consciousness, his own in- 
tellectual and moral faculties unimpaired, and never 
confounds himself with the spirit that possesses him. 
Always, then, does he retain the power of internal 
protest and struggle. Wherever this power is exer- 



344 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

cised, and there is clearly a struggle, there is no 
responsibility attaching to him, whatever the crimes 
the body, through the possession of the devil, is 
made to commit. But it may often happen that 
this power to protest is not exercised, and the pos- 
sessed yields his moral assent to the crimes com- 
mitted by the demon that possesses him. He then 
becomes a partaker of their guilt. Wherever it is 
clear that he has not internally resisted, that he 
has not struggled against the demon, and protested 
against his iniquity, the law should punish him for 
the crimes as severely as if there had been no posses- 
sion at all. The error of modern jurisprudence is 
that, not recognizing the fact of possession, it pun- 
ishes alike both classes, or it lets off both under the 
plea of insanity. In the latter case justice becomes 
too lax, and the greater the criminal, the more enor- 
mous his crime, the less likely is he to be punished ; 
in the former case justice is too severe, and persons 
really innocent, and meritorious even, are condemned 
as the basest of criminals. The law in the middle 
ages, or before the wonderful progress of intelligence 
and humanity in modern times, distinguished be- 
tween the two classes, and knew how to acquit the 
innocent and to punish the guilty. Now the ten- 
dency is either to acquit or to condemn both indis- 
criminately." 

Dr. Corning and Mr. Merton, after this, revived 
their former discussion of the question of insanity; 
but as nothing was really added on either side to 



DIFFICULTIES. 345 

what had been previously said, I do not think it 
necessary to record their conversation. For myself, 
it seemed to me that the question between the 
theory which explains the phenomena by insanity, 
and that which explains them by Satanic invasion, 
is of immense practical importance. When the old 
doctrine was rejected, the law became excessively 
severe, and humanity was shocked. Philosophers 
and philanthropists sought to mitigate it by assert- 
ing the doctrine of necessity, of materialism, of the 
inherent goodness of the soul, and by ascribing all 
misdeeds to external influences, to the action of na- 
ture, society, government, &c. In other words, they 
sought to mitigate the law by denying all moral 
turpitude. 

But latterly the older doctrine of spiritualism, as 
opposed to materialism, and of freedom as opposed 
to necessity, has revived, and the old severity of the 
law must return, unless some new way can be dis- 
covered of escaping it. This new way is the plea 
of insanity. The tendency now is to make insanity 
a plea for every crime of some little magnitude. 
Our lunatic hospitals are crowded ; new ones are 
constructed, and no inconsiderable portion of our 
population are likely to become their inmates. Phy- 
sicians, carried away by their false science and 
mistaken humanity, discard all the old criteria of 
lunacy, and the courts, following them, will soon 
find that all persons brought before them for trial 
are insane and irresponsible. The guilty will go 



346 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

nnwhipt of justice, because no guilt will be recog- 
nized. If the phenomena in question are to be ex- 
plained by insanity, I do not see what crime it will 
not cover. 

The subject deserves serious consideration. For 
my part, I cannot recognize insanity where the per- 
son evidently retains his intellectual powers unde- 
ranged or unimpaired, where he retains the faculty 
of reasoning and judging correctly, however he may 
be driven by foreign influences to this or that crime. 
When he tells me that he was obliged by something 
to do this or that, and that when he did it, it seemed 
to him that it was not he, but some power impelling 
him, I raise no question of insanity, but simply, as 
Merton suggests we should, the question of internal 
resistance, and measure him by the greater or less 
energy and persistence of that internal resistance. 



347 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. 



Though I remained an invalid, there were times 
when I revived, and almost flattered myself that I 
might yet, in spite of the prognostications of my 
physician, recover. I was still comparatively young, 
and I did not precisely like the thought of dying. 
The simple pain of dying did not affright me; nor 
had I much reluctance to leave the world, where 
there was little that had any charm for me. But I 
could not help sending now and then uneasy glances 
beyond the tomb. There might be a spirit-world 
beyond, and death might not after all extinguish the 
life of the soul. I might, perhaps, live in that un- 
known world, retain my personal identity, and dis- 
tinct consciousness and memory. I might, too, at 
least I could not say it was impossible, be punished 
there for my sins in this world, and be condemned 
to have for my companions those very devils whose 
acquaintance I had so assiduously cultivated here. 
That might not be pleasant. Indeed, I began to 
have many painful reflections, and to ask myself if 
I had not been all my life making a fool of myself. 
I had been promised great things, but what had I 
obtained ? 



348 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

" Your experience, my dear friend," said Mr. Mer- 
ton, " I doubt not, proves the truth of the old saying, 
the devil always, sooner or later, leaves his followers 
in the lurch. You remember, probably, I called the 
morning after my introduction to you, to give you 
and Priscilla a warning as to what awaited you. 
You were then too elated, too full of hope, to listen 
to any thing I could say ; at least, so it seemed to 
me at the time." 

" Yet you were mistaken. The few words you 
said interested me much, and I wished at the time 
to hear more." 

" Alas ! it is one of the miseries of the world, that 
the wicked are much more active for mischief, than 
the virtuous are for good. Would to God that the 
followers of Christ had a tithe of the industry and 
energy of the followers of Satan. If I had been 
more earnest, more ready to sacrifice my own ease 

and my own pride, perhaps . But that is idle. 

You will, I presume, readily concede now that you 
were then laboring under a delusion, and indulged 
hopes which have not been realized ? " 

"Undoubtedly." 

" So it is. Satan never keeps his promises." 

" I wish you to explain," said Jack, who that mo- 
ment entered the room, — "I wish you to explain 
how it is, if Satan is as powerful, and does as many 
marvellous things as you pretend, that they who 
give themselves up soul and body to him, always 
fail at last. Your mighty sorcerers and magicians 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. 349 

always find their master failing them when it comes 
to the pinch. Ninety-nine times the devil enables 
the sorcerer to open the prison doors, to become in- 
visible to the sight or impervious to the sword of 
his enemies, to overwhelm them, or to escape them 
by flying away through the keyhole ; but the hun- 
dredth time fails him, and leaves him to be captured, 
to confess his crimes, and to be burnt alive. Ac- 
cording to all accounts, your witches are the most 
miserable old hags one ever meets — wretched old 
crones, living in the most abject poverty, and hardly 
able to procure the food necessary to keep soul and 
body together. The devil never comes when wanted, 
never makes his appearance before competent and 
credible witnesses. He performs his wonders in the 
dark ; and when one would really prove the fact of 
his presence, he is away, and nobody can get a 
glimpse of him." 

" And what else," replied Mr. Merton, " should be 
expected of the devil? And yet I would not treat 
your objection lightly, for it is one which has at 
times raised doubts in my own mind, and it makes 
me rather sceptical as to most of the tales of witch- 
craft, ghosts, and hobgoblins I hear or read of. But 
you should bear in mind that the devils are capri- 
cious as well as malicious, or rather, their malice 
itself is full of caprice. The devil, in all his inva- 
sions, seeks only to get himself worshipped, and to 
ruin souls. When he has made a soul his slave, 
made sure of its destruction in hell, his end is an- 
30 



o50 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

swered. He is a liar from the beginning, and the 
father of lies. He is the inveterate enemy of truth, 
and if he sometimes tells it, it is because compelled 
by a higher power; or if now and then, of his own 
accord, it is only because it serves his purpose of 
deception better than falsehood. If he sometimes 
keeps his promises, and seems to do the best he can 
for his slaves, it is for the same reason. Then, again, 
he is not omnipotent, he is not the supreme Lord; 
and however powerful he may be, there is One 
mightier than he, who can thwart him when he 
pleases. He can, as I often say, go only the length 
of his chain. It may comport with the purposes of 
God to suffer him to do many marvellous deeds, but 
never to suffer him to do them so uniformly or in 
such a manner that his victims shall not be able to 
detect the impostor, and know, if they will, that it 
is a foul and lying spirit they follow. Satan's de- 
light is in deceiving, and he delights as much in 
deceiving those already his slaves, as those he would 
make such ; and God so orders it, that his decep- 
tions shall be discoverable by all not wilfully blind. 
" The devil is called the prince of this world, but 
he is not its absolute lord. He can even here do 
only what he is, for the purposes of love or justice, 
permitted to do. It may turn out, then, that he is 
forbidden to come to the assistance of his servants 
in the nick of time, even when he himself is dis- 
posed to do so. He may raise the storm, but there 
is One asleep in the bark, who can at any instant 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. 351 

awake, and say to the winds and the waves, Peace, 
be still. It is not fitting that Satan should be able 
to keep his promises in the great majority of cases 
to the last, for that would leave too little chance of 
detecting his delusions, and would confirm his wor- 
ship. His failures prove his malice, and also that 
his power is not his own, therefore that he is not 
God. They serve, too, as punishments to his dupes, 
for it is fitting that they who, through evil inclina- 
tion and undue love of the world or of pleasure, trust 
to him, should ultimately fail in the very goods pro- 
mised. 

" The principles of God's providence are always 
and everywhere the same, and there is a close ana- 
logy between the natural and the supernatural. God 
has given to the universe its law. He has placed 
before man a real, substantial, and desirable good ; 
but he has made this good attainable only in one 
way, by obedience to his law, which is not an arbi- 
trary law, but a law founded in his own eternal 
reason, in his own infinite, eternal, and immutable 
justice. He who attempts to attain his good, his 
beatitude, by any other means, invariably and inevi- 
tably fails. It is as our Lord said, — 'I am the 
door;' and { he that entereth not by the door, but 
climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a 
robber.' Whoever seeks entrance into the fold of 
happiness by another than the God-appointed way, 
whatever that way may be, is predoomed to disap- 
pointment. All experience proves it. The depart- 



352 THE STIRIT-RArPER. 

lire by the ancient Gentiles from the patriarchal or 
primitive religion, led to the confusion of their un- 
derstandings, and to the adoption and practice of 
the grossest and most abominable superstitions — the 
extreme of moral or spiritual misery. The man who 
seeks happiness, even in this life, from acquiring or 
possessing riches and honor, always fails, even when 
he apparently succeeds. The most miserable of men 
are they who make pleasure their sole pursuit. The 
reason is, that beatitude is not promised to those 
pursuits, lies not on their plane, and is not attaina- 
ble by following them. He who attempts to attain 
it in any of those ways is no wiser than those phi- 
losophers of Laputa who sought to extract sunbeams 
from cucumbers. It is only in accordance with the 
same principle, that they who seek worldly felicity, 
by consorting with devils, should in like manner be 
disappointed." 

"All that is very wise, and would do very well for 
a sermon," said Jack. " It may, for aught I know, 
be very true. I have no knowledge on the subject, 
and no acquaintance with the devil or his angels. 
But I wish you would tell me how it happens that 
the witnesses to these marvellous phenomena are 
seldom if ever men of real science, well known, and 
of name in the scientific world? " 

" I thought you were one of those who would not 
admit authority even in matters of faith, and yet 
you demand authority in matters of science," replied 
Mr. Merton, in a tone slightly sarcastic. " You 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. 



353 



would have the French Academy, for instance, in 
science what Rome claims to be in religion, and 
admit a historical fact or a scientific conclusion only 
on academic authority." 

" But you know," replied Jack, " that scientific 
commissions appointed to investigate and report on 
particular cases in France, never succeed in getting 
a sight of those marvellous facts which are so readily 
exhibited to others. Is not this a suspicious circum- 
stance? " 

" Not in my mind," replied Mr. Merton. " Your 
learned academicians generally commence their in- 
vestigations with the persuasion that all facts of the 
kind alleged are impossible, and they seldom pay 
attention to the actual phenomena passing before 
them. They are busy only with their scepticism, 
and do not see what really takes place. Their study 
is simply how to explain away the phenomena they 
do see, without admitting their supernatural or su- 
perhuman character. Lawyers are said to be the 
worst witnesses in the world. Academicians are the 
very worst people in the world to observe facts. I 
would trust, in what depends on the senses, a plain, 
honest, unscientific peasant, much quicker than I 
would an Arago or a Babinet, for he has no theory 
to disturb him, no conclusion to establish or refute. 
The science of all your learned academies is infidel 
in regard to religion. Babinet, of the Institute, has 
just written an Essay in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
in which he pronounces the phenomena alleged by 
30* 



354 THE SPIRIT-RAITER. 

our recent spiritists impossible, because they contra- 
dict the laws of gravitation. Poor man! he reasons 
as if the phenomena repugnant to the laws of gravi- 
tation are supposed to be produced by it, or at least 
without a power that overcomes it. Why, the very 
marvellousness of the phenomenon is that it is con- 
trary to the law of gravitation; and because it is 
contrary to the law of gravitation, we infer that it is 
preternatural. The learned member of the Institute 
argues that the fact is impossible, because it would 
be preternatural, and the preternatural is impossible, 
because the preternatural would be preternatural ! 
When I see a man raised, without any visible means, 
to the ceiling, and held there by his feet with his 
head downwards for half an hour or more without 
a visible support, I do not pretend that it is in ac- 
cordance with the law of gravitation, but the essence 
of the fact is precisely in that it is not. Now, to 
deny the fact for that reason, is to say that the law 
of gravitation cannot be overcome or suspended, 
and precisely to beg the question. When I throw a 
stone into the air, my force, in some sense, over- 
comes that of gravitation. How does M. Babinet 
know that there are not invisible powers who can 
take a man and hold him up with his feet to the 
ceiling, or a table, as easily as I can a little child ? 
The fact of the rising of a table or a man to the 
ceiling is one that is easily verified by the senses, 
and if attested by witnesses of ordinary capacity 
and credibility, must be admitted. That it is con- 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. oOO 

trary to the law of gravitation, proves not that it is 
impossible, but that it is possible only preternatur- 
ally. It would be a real relief to find a distinguished 
academician who had learned practically the ele- 
ments of logic. 

" The devils, again,' 5 continued Mr. Merton, " may 
not choose to exhibit their superhuman powers be- 
fore your scientific commissions. It might be against 
their interest. He is sure of the commissioners as 
long as he can keep them in their scepticism ; but 
were he to suffer them to escape it, he might lose 
them. Compelled to acknowledge the existence of 
Satan, they might go further and acknowledge that 
of Christ, and become Christians, and labor to har- 
monize science with faith. Even God himself may 
choose to let them remain in their scepticism as a 
just punishment of their intellectual pride, their in- 
docility, and their preferring their own darkness to 
his light. They take pleasure in sin, and he gives 
them up to their own delusions, and permits them to 
believe a lie, that they may be damned, as they de- 
serve, for their sins. The malice, the cunning, the 
astuteness, the caprice of the devils, the preposses- 
sions of the scientific, and the purposes of God are 
amply sufficient to account for the fact that these 
commissions never succeed in witnessing the preter- 
natural or superhuman phenomena said to be wit- 
nessed by others.' 5 

"But how T am I, 55 asked Jack, "to believe that a 
poor old crone, who is half dying of starvation, is 



356 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

in league with the devil ? Why does she not make 
use of her power to procure decent clothing and 
maintenance?" 

" The devil is by no means a trustworthy or a 
kind and generous friend. He is a philanthropist, 
and never relieves the suffering under his nose, or 
cares for that of individuals." 

" I have read," Jack went on, " a great many witch 
stories, and descriptions of witch feasts, and I can- 
not discover what there is in them to attach these 
hell-cats to their alleged orgies. I came across, yes- 
terday, an account of the witches' sabbath. I can 
conceive nothing more absurd, ridiculous, or rather 
disgusting. The acquaintances of the devil gene- 
rally represent him as respectable at least for his 
intellect, and many insist that he is a gentleman. 
But if all accounts are true, he is very low and vul- 
gar in his tastes, has very little sense of dignity, and 
is in fact a very shabby fellow. In these orgies he 
appears, it is said, sometimes in the form of a big 
negro, more generally under the form of a black ram 
with immense horns, and in that form is very in- 
decently kissed and worshipped by Mesdames the 
witches. We know from Tarn O'Shanter that on 
these occasions there is much fiddling and dancing, 
but I cannot conceive how there can be much plea- 
sure. The whole scene is fitted only to turn one's 
stomach." 

" There is no doubt of that," replied Mr. Merton. 
" The devil and his worshippers certainly cut a very 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. 357 

sorry figure in these nocturnal orgies, as they are 
represented; but I am not certain that that should 
be regarded as good ground of scepticism. I never 
understood that the devil was a clean spirit, and I 
should naturally expect some degree of filthiness in 
his worshippers. You must know something of the 
sins or moral diseases of mankind. Has it not 
sometimes occurred to you that some apparently 
very respectable people, — people who go well dressed 
and wear clean linen, — under the influence of their 
passions, acting out their natures, cut, to an impar- 
tial spectator, about as sorry a figure as Master 
Leonard and his witches ? In the eyes of Infinite 
Holiness, I am inclined to think there is much that 
passes in refined and cultivated society that does 
not appear at all more clean and respectable than 
do these nocturnal orgies in yours. I do not vouch 
for the correctness of the popular descriptions of 
these orgies, but they are in accordance with the 
well known principles of depraved nature. The in- 
dulgence of any of our morbid passions degrades 
us ; and in following our lusts, there is no beastli- 
ness which is not for the moment charming to us. 
How much more, then, when to our natural pas- 
sions, rendered morbid by indulgence, is added the 
superhuman influence of unclean spirits ! The sen- 
sualist lives constantly in a state as disgusting as 
ever the nocturnal orgies of witches were represented 
to be. It is the law of all vice to descend, and con- 
sequently, the more intimate we are with the devil, 



358 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

only the more rapid and deep is our descent. The 
moral of the witches' orgies is true, whether the 
particular descriptions be or not. He who takes 
the devil for God, must expect to have hell for his 
heaven." 

" The academicians are right," I remarked, " in 
telling us that the whole of the alleged diablerie is 
all a delusion or an imposition." 

" Not precisely in their sense, however," inter- 
rupted Mr. Merton. " The whole is unquestionably 
a delusion, a sheer imposture, but of the devil, not 
always of man. The devil promises according to 
the respective inclinations of his servants — to some 
riches and honors, to some sensual pleasures, to 
others power, dominion over men, and the secrets of 
nature. I doubt not that he knows more than men, 
but he can never be relied on, for he so mingles his 
lies with the truth, that we cannot separate the one 
from the other." 

" That is true," I remarked ; " and those secrets 
he promises we never gain. We grow proud, we 
assume airs, we feel that we are making marvellous 
discoveries ; we talk large, use big swelling words, 
and seem to penetrate the secret of the universe; 
but we have only clutched at the air, and when we 
open our hand, it is empty. We had made no ad- 
vance, we had found no vein of knowledge 4 and 
when the spell was broken, we found ourselves 
weaker and more ignorant than ever. The fairy 
gold was chips and stubble. The palace of wisdom 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. 



359 



we saw before us, and in which we proposed to live 
with the Sultan's fair daughter, disappears, carries her 
away in it, and leaves us only empty space. I well 
remember some of my early aspirations. I thought 
I was illumined by a more than natural light. The 
clouds rolled back before my searching glance ; the 
darkness disappeared; there w T as no dread Unknown 
to confront me ; I rose to the empyrean ; I was all 
intelligence ; I looked, as a lady of my acquaint- 
ance expressed it, 'into the very abyss of Being.' 
Yet it was all illusion — a devilish illusion — and 
my understanding was all the time darkened, and 
my eyes closed to the plainest and most obvious 
truths before me." 

" It was a deception practised upon you — a de- 
ception practised alike upon all who would attain 
to a forbidden knowledge, or to knowledge by ways 
not permitted by the Supreme Intelligence — upon 
the Neoplatonists, the Gnostics, the Transcendental- 
ists, and false mystics of every age," added Mr. Mer- 
ton. " The light we hail in those forbidden ways 
or aspirations, is the light which we see when our 
eyes are shut. It is a preternatural hallucination, 
and he who follows it is sure not only to go astray, 
but to fall into the greatest absurdities, and to utter 
the most ridiculous nonsense." 

" The same principle," I added, " is true with 
regard to the promised power over men. These 
Satanic revolutions, and the terrible doings of our 
revolutionary Berserkirs, all prove failures in the 



360 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

end. Cromwell supplants Hampden, and Napo- 
leon Lafayette. The devil always leaves us in the 
lurch." 

" This fact should be borne in mind," added Mr. 
Merton, " and if so, might save the world from much 
superstition. The superstition is not in believing in 
the reality of demonic invasions, or in believing that 
the devil sometimes exhibits a superhuman power, 
tells us, in dreams, visions, necromancy, or other 
forms of divination, facts of which we were igno- 
rant ; but in practising these forms, in confiding in 
the communications, and in seeking to avail our- 
selves of the power displayed. No reliance can ever 
be placed upon them, for supposing the demonic 
presence real, we have still only a lying spirit on 
which to depend. The dream of yesternight has 
come true, that of to-night will prove false. The 
medium you consulted the other day foretold cor- 
rectly what was to happen ; to-day her familiar spirit 
is a lying spirit, and her tale is false in all its parts. 
The predictions of the fortune-teller last year have 
been fulfilled ; his predictions of to-day are a tissue 
of lies. If Ahab goes up to battle, he shall not die ; 
yet is shot by a bow drawn at a venture. To trust 
in these things is gross superstition, and tends only 
to degrade, to render immoral, weak, timid, and 
miserable. The way of wisdom is io let them alone, 
turn your back on them, and never suffer your mind 
or imagination to run on them." 

" It is worthy of remark, that the men who de- 



LEFT IN THE LURCH. 361 

claim the most against superstition are unbelievers 
in Christianity? and who, under pretext of making 
war on superstition, attack religion itself. And yet 
the Church has always forbidden all superstitious 
practices, and she commands her children to have 
no dealings with the devil, to forbear all resort to 
fortune-tellers or divination, and to pay no attention 
to dreams, omens, &c. Of course all such things 
are wrong, are sin, are treason against God ; but 
they are also, and because treason against God, and 
a dealing with the enemy, unwise and degrading. 
There is no saying to what depths he may fall who 
gives way to them, or the misery and wretchedness 
he may bring upon himself, and even upon those 
dear to him. I could, were I disposed, draw proofs 
enough from my own experience, while I was a prey 
to the superstitions still so rife in our country ; but 
I will not trouble you with them. But of this be 
sure, that you will never root out that superstition 
by denying the existence and influence of demons. 
The remedy is in religious faith, in cultivating a 
firm trust in God, in obedience to his commands, — 
and in the firm persuasion that all dealings with 
; devils is unlawful, and that all regard paid to signs, 
dreams, and omens is superstitious and sinful, and, 
what will weigh perhaps still more with our age, 
wholly unprofitable. No good can come from seek- 
ing knowledge by forbidden paths, and much evil is 
sure to come." 

" I am glad," said Jack, " that Mr. Merton has the 
31 



362 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

grace to admit so much. It would have been a 
blessed thing for me, if I had been taught to regard 
mesmerism as unlawful ; better still, if it had never 
been recommended to me as a legitimate science. 
I do not believe in Satanic invasions ; but I do be- 
lieve little good comes from departing from the old 
ways, and attempting to be wiser than our fathers 



363 



CHAPTER XXV. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



Our conversations were continued, but they threw 
no additional light on the main subject of our in- 
vestigations, and I may well dispense myself from 
the labor of recording them. I found my early sus- 
picion confirmed, and finally adopted Mr. Merton's 
conclusion, that the class of phenomena which had 
for several years occupied my attention, and to 
which, according to the spiritists themselves, the re- 
cent spirit-manifestations belong, are real, are facts 
which actually take place, and are, under certain 
relations and to a certain extent, superhuman in 
their origin and character. As these phenomena 
cannot be ascribed to God or to good angels, they 
must be ascribed to Satan, to evil spirits, the enemies 
of God and man. 

I am well aware that this conclusion will be re- 
ceived by my brother savans with great derision, 
and that they will look upon me as having lost my 
wits. Even many who are not savans, who are sin- 
cere and firm believers in Christianity, and who, in 
a general way, admit the fact of Satanic invasion, 
will laugh at the supposition that the phenomena of 



364 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

spirit-rapping, table-turning, &c, are any thing more 
than very bungling pieces of humbuggery and sleight- 
of-hand. Be it so. Their good or bad opinion, their 
esteem or contempt, is of very little importance to 
me, who have not many days to live, and who have 
so soon to face another and a far different Judge. 
He who fears God, cannot fear man. My conclu- 
sion has not been hastily adopted, and it is, as far as 
I can see, the only conclusion to which a Christian 
philosopher can come. 

Mr. Cotton had preserved, what so many have 
lost, the Christian tradition as to evil spirits, and 
was right in the main. His error was in ascribing 
all the phenomena exhibited by the practice of mes- 
merism to the devil and his angels. Mesmerism, 
though abnormal, is to a certain extent susceptible 
of a satisfactory explanation on natural principles. 
Man, as Mr. Merton, after the elder Gorres, main- 
tained, has a twofold development, the one normal, 
in which he rises to spiritual freedom by union with 
God, the other abnormal, in which he descends to 
spiritual slavery by descending to union with created 
nature. In the former he tends continually to escape 
from the fatalism of nature, and to ascend to the 
pure and serene atmosphere of spiritual freedom, in 
which the spirit becomes supreme over the body. 
In the latter he follows the laws of fatal or unfree 
nature, loses his spiritual dominion, becomes, or 
tends to become, subject in his soul to his body, 
while the body falls under the operation of the gene- 



CONCLUSIONS. 365 

ral forces of necessary nature, and responds fatally, 
or without freedom, to the pulses of the external 
universe. 

In the ascending development, by the aid of grace 
and good angels, the man, the Christian mystic, like 
St. Catharine, St. Theresa, or St. Bernardine of 
Sienna, and so many others of the saints of the 
Church, rises to spiritual freedom, and even to a 
certain extent, liberates the body from the fatalism 
of nature. The body itself seems to enter into the 
freedom of the spirit, and, through the free soul 
informing it, to be able to resist the action of neces- 
sary or unfree nature, as the vital principle enables 
the living body to resist and overcome the action of 
chemical affinity. The body is as it were spiritual- 
ized, not absolutely indeed, but partially, as if in 
anticipation of the resurrection, or rather, as point- 
ing to a resurrection and its glorious transformation 
hereafter. It is baptized, participates, if I may so 
say, in the sanctifying grace infused into the soul, 
becomes pure, and even when the soul leaves it, 
emits a fragrant odor.* 

In the descending development, that is, in the 

* I do not forget here, nor do I intend to assert any thing against 
the doctrine of the Holy Council of Trent, that concupiscence remains 
after baptism, for the combat, or that the fames of sin remain, and 
that as long as one lives there is the possibility of sin. The body, in 
this life, is never wholly liberated and restored to its integral state ; 
but that it is liberated in some measure, and that it in the saints, (in 
some saints at least,) in a degree participates, even this side the grave, 
in the freedom of the soul, I think is undeniable. 
31* 



366 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

abnormal development, in which we turn our backs 
on our Maker, who is at once our Original and End, 
our Creator and our Supreme Good, and tend in the 
direction from him, our soul lets go its mastery, and 
our body falls under the dominion of unfree nature, 
enters into the series of its laws, and is exposed to 
all its necessary and invincible forces. We become 
not merely sensual, but, in some sense, physical men, 
and act under and with the great physical agents of 
the universe. We become feeble and strong as the 
lightning whose bolt rends the oak, and is turned 
aside by a silken thread. Now to this abnormal de- 
velopment, mesmerism, in my judgment, belongs; 
and therefore, though abnormal, it is not necessarily 
preternatural. It belongs not to healthy but un- 
healthy nature, and its phenomena are never ex- 
hibited except in a subject naturally or artificially 
diseased. I have never known a person of vigorous 
constitution and robust health mesmerized. The ex- 
periments of Baron Reichenbach were all made on 
persons in ill health, for the most part on patients 
under medical treatment. The seeress of Provost 
was sickly, and suffering from an incurable malady ; 
and it may be asserted as a general rule, that no one 
is a subject of mesmerism whose constitution, espe- 
cially the nervous constitution, is in its normal state. 
I have no dgubt that many of the phenomena 
regarded by the vulgar as the effect of Satanic inva- 
sion, are to be explained by reference to this abnor- 
mal development, without the supposition of any 



CONCLUSIONS. 367 

direct agency of evil spirits. The precise limits of 
the power of this abnormal development we do not 
know, and therefore we are always to be exceedingly 
slow to assume the direct invasion of the devil to 
explain this or that extraordinary phenomenon, as 
Mr. Merton has already explained. The error of 
Mr. Cotton was in not distinguishing between ab- 
normal phenomena artificially produced, and the 
phenomena of real demonic presence. He asked too 
much of us, and we gave him nothing. He failed 
to command from us the respect he deserved, and I 
am sorry for it. He was a worthy man in his way, 
and far less superstitious, and far more philosophi- 
cal than those who thought it a mark of their supe- 
riority to ridicule him. But he is gone, and has 
in his own denomination left few behind who are 
worthy to step into his shoes. 

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to infer, from the 
fact that the proper mesmeric phenomena are expli- 
cable on natural principles, that the practice of mes- 
merism is lawful or not dangerous. It is an artificial 
disease, and injurious to the physical constitution. 
It moreover facilitates the Satanic invasion. Sa- 
tan has no creative power, and can operate only on 
a nature created to his hands, and in accordance 
with conditions of which he has not the sovereign 
control. Ordinarily, he can invade our bodies only 
as they are in an abnormal state, and by availing 
himself of some natural force, it may be some fluid, 
or some invisible and imponderable agent like elec- 



368 . THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

tricity, or what Baron Reichenbach calls od, and 
Mesmer animal magnetism, and the older magnet- 
ists called spirit of the world. The practice of mes- 
merism brings into play this force, and thus gives 
occasion to the devil, or exposes us to his malice 
and invasions. 

But, though it is unwise, as well as unscientific, 
to ascribe to Satan what is explicable on natural 
principles, the contrary error is the one which in our 
times is the most necessary to be guarded against. 
Nothing is more unphilosophical than to treat the 
dark facts of human history as unreal, or to attempt 
to explain them all without resort to demonic influ- 
ence. Many of the facts recorded, no doubt, never 
took place. Many were the result of fraud, impos- 
ture, jugglery, and many are explicable by reference 
to the abnormal development of human nature; but 
after making all reasonable deductions for these, 
there remains a residuum, as Mr. Merton has said, 
which it is as absurd to attempt to explain without 
the action of evil spirits, as to explain the light of 
day without the sun, or the existence and preserva- 
tion of the universe without God. Not otherwise 
can you ever succeed in explaining the introduction, 
establishment, persistence, and power of the various 
cruel, filthy, and revolting superstitions of the an- 
cient heathen world, or of pagan nations in modern 
times. No genuine philosopher will attempt to ex- 
plain them on natural principles alone. 

They reveal a more than human power, and we 



CONCLUSIONS. 369 

have no alternative but to ascribe them either to 
God or to the devil. We cannot ascribe them to 
God, for they were too foul and filthy, too deleterious 
in their effects, too debasing and enslaving in their 
influence, to be ascribed to a good source. They 
were, then, from Satan, operating upon man's mor- 
bid nature, and permitted by Infinite Justice as a 
deserved punishment upon the Gentiles for their 
hatred of truth, and their apostasy from the primi- 
tive religion. Men left to themselves, to human 
nature alone, however low they might be prone to 
descend, never could descend so low as to worship 
wood and stone, four-footed beasts, and creeping 
things. To do this needs Satanic delusion. 

The same must be said of Mahometanism. The 
old theory, which made Mahomet an out-and-out 
impostor, who said, deliberately, " with malice afore- 
thought," " Go to now, let us make a new religion 
and impose it upon the world," no man, accus- 
tomed to philosophize, can for a moment entertain. 
No man ever yet went to work deliberately to devise * 
and impose a false religion, or if any one ever did, 
he never succeeded. He who founds a new religion 
is never an impostor in his own eyes. He works 
"in a sad sincerity," and imposes on himself before 
imposing on others. Mahomet evidently believed 
in himself, in the sanctity of his own mission, and 
worked from an earnest conviction, not from simple 
craft or calculation. I am pleased to find the author 
of that admirable poem, Mohammed, a Tragedy in 



370 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Five Acts, a work of rare sagacity and true poetic 
genius, rejecting the old theory of downright impos- 
ture. The estimable author maintains that he was 
sincere in part, and in part insincere. He was sin- 
cere in his assertion of the unity of God, and in his 
hostility to idolatry, but insincere in the assertion of 
his prophetic mission. I am not, however, satisfied 
with this. I do not deny that men may be half sin- 
cere, and half knavish, or that they be sincere and 
earnest as to the end, and wholly unscrupulous as 
to the means. But in nothing was Mahomet more 
sincere than in his belief in his own mission, and in 
the supernatural origin of the Koran. Never, with- 
out that conviction, could he have inspired his fol- 
lowers with it, or have himself persevered for so 
many years, amid the ill success and discourage- 
ments that he experienced. His gratitude, evidently 
unfeigned, to Cadijah, his first consort, and to Me- 
dina, which received him on his flight from Mecca, 
cherished to the last moment of his life, proves that 
he believed in his own mission. 

The same thing is proved by his open vice and pro- 
fligacy after his success. A man conscious that he is 
playing a part, that he has a character to sustain, 
that he is acting the prophet, would have been more 
circumspect, more wary in the indulgence of his 
lusts, and affected a life of more rigid asceticism. He 
would have been on his guard against scandalizing 
his followers, and would never have dared insert in 
his Koran those scandalous provisions which spe- 



CONCLUSIONS. 371 

cially exempt him from obedience to the laws which 
he professed, by Divine authority, to impose upon 
his followers. Imposture can never afford to aban- 
don itself openly to the empire of the passions. 
Heretics are usually more careful than the orthodox 
in regard to appearances. They usually affect great 
purity of life, a decorous exterior, and a grave and y 
sanctimonious face and tone. Hypocrisy is austere, 
maintains in its look and tone an awful gravity, and 
never relaxes in public. It is only innocence that 
dares be light and frolicsome, and yield to its vary- 
ing impulses. Nobody is so shocked with the im- 
aginary impurities of Convents and Nunneries as 
your debauched old sinners, steeped in corruption, 
and the miserable slaves of their own morbid pas- 
sions and prurient imagination. 

What deceives the excellent and gifted author 
of the Tragedy, is the fact that so far as Mahomet 
asserted the unity of God against the polytheism 
of the unconverted Arabs, and opposed idolatry, 
he was on the side of truth and religion, and con- 
sequently was so far opposed to Satan. He thinks 
that thus far he could not have been under the influ- 
ence of an evil spirit. Has he forgotten the demon 
of Socrates ? Has he forgotten that the devil can 
disguise himself as an angel of light? Paganism, 
in its old form, was doomed. Christianity had si- 
lenced the oracles and driven the devils back to hell. 
How was the devil to reestablish his worship on 
earth, and carry on his war against the so.n of God? 



372 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Evidently only by changing his tactics, and turning 
the truth into a lie. There is nothing to hinder us 
from believing that Satan himself taught Mahomet 
the unity of God, and inspired him with horror of 
the prevailing forms of idolatry. The strong keeps 
the house, as our Lord says, till a stronger binds 
him and enters into possession. The devil would ex- 
pel polytheism and the grosser forms of idolatry, no 
longer in harmony with the spirit of the times, that 
he might make the last state worse than the first; 
and whoever has studied history knows that Ma- 
hometanism has proved a far more formidable ene- 
my to Christianity than was the paganism braved by 
the Apostles. The truths of the Koran are intro- 
duced only to sanction its errors, and its moral 
precepts, many of which are good, only to give 
countenance to its immorality, to its Satanic abomi- 
nations. 

Mahomet in his life was subject to what we call 
in these days the mesmeric trance, as w T as Socrates. 
He w T ould often be suddenly arrested, fall prostrate 
upon the earth, and in this attitude and in these 
trances he professed to receive his revelations. Here 
are evidently the mesmeric phenomena which in 
some form always accompany the presence and in- 
vasion of demons. Mr. Miles has introduced these, 
and described them with great spirit, truth, and pro- 
priety, in the opening scene of his tragedy. The 
time is the night of Al Kadir, the place is the Cave 
of Hara, three miles from Mecca, where Mahomet 



I 



CONCLUSIONS. 373 

was accustomed to resort and spend much time 
alone. Mahomet is seen prostrate upon the slope 
of a rock, resembling a rude pedestal, his face con- 
cealed by his turban. He is visited by Cadijah, his 
affectionate and beloved wife. To her he seems 
asleep. She calls him, she approaches him, she em- 
braces him, and tries to awaken him. All in vain. 
Finding her efforts fruitless, she exclaims, 

' : Alas, this is not sleep ! Some evil spirit 
O'ershadows thee." 

When finally the vision departs, and Mahomet 
awakes, he breaks out, 

" Gone ! gone ! celestial messenger, 
Angel of light ! 



Yes — 'twas there — 'twas there 

The angel stood, in more than mortal splendor, 
Before my dazzled vision ! — I have heard thee, 
Ambassador from Allah to my soul, 
Have heard and will obey." 

To the question of Cadijah, "What mystery is 
this ? " he answers, 

11 Ah ! the tremendous recollection bursts 
So vividly upon me, that my tongue 
Grows cold and speechless. I was here alone, 
Expecting thee, when, suddenly, I heard 
My name pronounced, with voice more musical 
Than Peri warbling in my ear. 
Ravish'd, I turned, and saw upon that rock, 
Resplendent hovering there, an angel form ; 
I knew 'twas Gabriel, Allah's messenger. 
32 



374 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

Celestial glories compassed him around ; 
Arched o'er his splendid head, his glistening wings 
Shed light, and musk, and melody. No more 
I saw — no more my mortal eye could bear. 
Prone on my face I fell, and, from the dust, 
Besought him quench his superhuman radiance. 
' Look up,' he said ; I stole a trembling glance ; 
And then, a beauteous youth, he stood and smiled. 
Then, as his ruby lips unclosed, I heard — 
1 Go teach what mortals know not yet, — There is 
No God but one — Mohammed is his Prophet ! ' 
E'en as he spoke, his mantling glories burst 
With such transporting brightness, that, o'erawed, 
I sunk in dizzy trance, which still might thrall 
My inmost soul, had not those impious names, 
Breathing of hell, dispelled it." * 

Here are presented, very clearly, the phenomena 
which precede or accompany the demonic approach 
and invasion. When the false god took possession 
of Balaam, he threw him to the earth ; and it was 
in a sort of somnambulic state that he prophesied, 
or rather that the demon in him was compelled, 
against his will, to bless instead of cursing Israel, 
and to prophesy his glory. " There is no God but 
one," in the sense intended by Mahomet, and under- 
stood by his followers, is by no means a truth, for 
in that sense, it denies not merely polytheism, but 
was intended more especially to deny the Christian 
doctrine of the Trinity. The Koran repeatedly so 
explains it, and therefore the unity of God, as taught 
by the false prophet, is not a truth but a lie, and the 

- Mohammed, a Tragedy in Five Acts. Bv George H. Miles. 
Boston, 1850, pp. 1 -6. 



CONCLUSIONS.- 



375 



Mahometans worship not the true God, but a false 
god, as do all who deny that God is at once three 
distinct persons in one Divine Essence or Being. 

Nothing is less philosophical than the tendency in 
modern times, especially since the time of Voltaire, 
to explain great effects by petty causes, as the peace 
of Utrecht by Mrs. Masham's spilling a little water 
on the Duchess of Marlborough's dress. The stream 
cannot rise higher than the fountain, or the effect 
exceed the cause. A little fire can kindle a great 
matter, but that little fire is the occasion, not the 
cause of the wide-spread conflagration. Nothing 
more surely indicates a narrow, superficial, and un- 
philosophical spirit than the attempt, as is the case 
with most writers, to explain the origin, progress, 
and power of Mahometanism by the fanaticism, the 
cunning, the craft, or the superior genius and ability 
of Mahomet, even though we suppose him aided by 
a Jew and a Nestorian monk. There were fraud, 
craft, trickery, and all the means of imposition em- 
ployed ; yet never can they suffice alone to account 
for the terrible phenomena of Islamism, which, for 
twelve hundred years has waged battle with the 
cross, and possessed itself of the fairest regions of 
the globe. Whoever studies it calmly and pro- 
foundly must come to the conclusion that there has 
been at w r ork in it a more than human power, and 
that, if not, as the Moslems believe, from God, it 
must be from the devil. 

Do not ascribe so much to mere human power, 



376 T»E SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

wisdom, craft, fraud, dexterity, or skill. These are 
far feebler than it is customary in our days to regard 
them. In general men are duped themselves before 
they undertake to dupe others. Never yet was there 
a noted heresiarch who did not believe in his own 
heresy, and hence there is no instance on record of 
a real heresiarch, the originator and founder of a 
new heresy, being reclaimed to the orthodox faith, 
unless we except the doubtful case of Berengarius. 
I have never been able to sympathize with those 
Catholic writers who would persuade us that the 
Protestant Reformation originated in petty jealous- 
ies and rivalries between the Dominican and Au- 
gustinian monks. That view is too narrow and 
superficial ; nor can we ascribe it to the pride, the 
vanity, and the ambition, or the intelligence, the 
virtue, the wisdom, and the sanctity of the monk 
Luther. Luther was a man terribly in earnest, a 
genuine man, and no sham, as Carlyle would say; 
and so were all the prominent chiefs in that terri- 
ble movement of the sixteenth century. The cool, 
subtle, dark, persevering Calvin, the fiery, energetic, 
and ferocious John Knox and their compeers were 
no petty tricksters, no dilettanti, no shrewd calcu- 
lating hypocrites. They were terribly in earnest; 
they believed in themselves; they believed in the 
spirit that moved them, that spoke in their words, 
and struck in their blows against the old Papal 
edifice. It is nonsense to repeat, age after age, 
that the denial by the Holy See of the divorce so- 



CONCLUSIONS. 



377 



licited by Henry the Eighth, caused the separation 
of England from Catholic unity. That wily and 
lustful monarch, who must live in history as the 
" wife-slayer," found in that denial only an occasion 
of withdrawing his kingdom from its spiritual sub- 
jection to Rome, and of uniting in the crown the 
pontifical with the royal authority. Whoever looks 
beneath the surface of things, whoever studies, in 
a truly philosophical spirit, that fearful Protest- 
ant movement, must recognize in it a superhu- 
man power, and say that either the finger of God, 
or the hand of the devil is here, and that its chiefs 
must have been inspired by the Holy Ghost, or 
driven onward by infuriated demons. 

So, it seems to me, we must reason with regard 
to Cromwell and the stern old Puritans, fierce and 
terrible as the old Berserkirs from the North. There 
was something superhuman in the English rebellion 
and revolution of the seventeenth century; and if 
Cromwell and his party were not specially moved 
by the Holy Spirit, as they believed, they must have 
been animated and driven on by the old Norse de- 
mon. So also of the old French Revolution, and 
of all those terrible convulsions which have ruined 
nations and shaken the world. Men are indeed in 
them, with their wisdom and their folly, their beliefs 
and their doubts, their virtues and their vices, but 
there is more in them than these. There is in them 
the fierce conflict of invisible powers, ever renew- 
ing and carrying on that fierce and unrelenting war 
32* 



378 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

which Lucifer and his rebel host dared wage against 
the Most High, and which must continue till time 
be no more. All history, if we did but understand 
it, is little else but the history of the conflict betw r een 
these invisible powers ; and till we learn this fact, in 
vain shall we pride ourselves on our philosophies of 
History. 

Carlyle has well exposed the shallow philosophy 
and absurd theories of our popular historians. Would 
he had himself gone deeper, and recognized the de- 
monic and also the providential element in history, 
and not have attempted to explain its philosophy on 
human nature alone. Your Odins, Thors, Socra- 
teses, Mahomets, Cromwells, Bonapartes, are not 
simply exponents of true, living, energetic manhood, 
and owe not their success, or their place in history 
to their clear perception and their instinctive adhe- 
rence to the laws of true and genuine nature, as 
Carlyle would have us believe. The nature he bids 
us worship is the devil, the dark, subterranean De- 
mon, that seizes us, blinds our eyes, and carries us 
onward, whither we know not, and by a power 
which we are not. It is the demon of the storm, 
the whirlwind, and the tempest, the volcano and the 
earthquake, and the Carlylean heroes are energu- 
menes, Berserkirs, who spread devastation around 
them, who quaff the blood of their enemies, from 
human skulls, in the orgies of Valhalla, and leave as 
their monuments the ruins of nations. Carlyle has 
himself been touched with a German devil, and re- 









CONCLUSIONS. 



379 



ceived a slight manipulation from the old Norse 
demon. But he has done well to say, " No sham 
can live ;" he might have added, No sham is or can 
be productive. It is not by petty passions and petty 
tricks that nations are shaken to their centre, and 
fearful revolutions, which change the face of the 
world, are effected. Only what is real is, and only 
what is, can do. Under all the heavings and tossings 
of nature, there is a reality of some sort ; and only 
by means of that reality can you explain the his- 
torical phenomena that arrest your attention. 

I have just been reading, in order to relieve my 
weariness, Sir Walter Scott's Woodstock, not surely 
one of his best, but one of his most serious novels, in 
which he has endeavored to be something of the phi- 
losopher, as well as the unrivalled romancer. Poor 
man! wizard of the north, as he has been called, 
his magician's wand fails him here. How was he, 
with the shallow philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, to explain such a phenomenon as Cromwell and 
his Major Generals, those furious Berserkirs, true 
descendants of the old Vikings of the North ? To 
say that Oliver and the Independents were mere 
long-faced, psalm-singing hypocrites, moved only by 
the ordinary motives and passions of human beings, 
is a libel on history. Long-faced, sanctimonious, 
and long-winded, famous for their dark cloaks and 
steeple-crowned hats, their psalm-singing, their Bib- 
lical phraseology, their speaking through the ndse, 
and turning up the white of the eye, they certainly 



380 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

were ; but whoso supposes they were so by virtue of 
subtle, calculating hypocrisy, knows them not. What- 
ever else Cromwell and the Puritans were, they were 
no hypocrites ; their manners, their dress, and address, 
however objectionable we may choose to regard them, 
were not affected to cloak conscious vice or iniquity, 
or to deceive either their friends or their enemies. 
Never were men more serious, more deeply in ear- 
nest; and it was in obedience to what they held to 
be the voice of God that they preached, fasted, sung 
psalms, prayed, and — kept their powder dry. It 
was not by their snivel, their nasal twang, their Bib- 
lical phraseology, nor by an affectation of piety and 
dependence on the Lord, nor by any form of hypo- 
crisy or cant, that they made mincemeat of the drink- 
ing, swearing rakehell, but brave and loyal cava- 
liers at Marston Moor, Edgehill, and Worcester. A 
chorus of spirits, black or w r hite, joined in their 
psalm-singing, and invisible powers sped their balls 
to the hearts of their enemies, and gave force to the 
well-aimed strokes of their swords. 

Certainly the hand of Providence in the affairs of 
nations is not to be denied, and certain it is that 
God visits nations in mercy and in judgment. A 
sound theology, an enlightened piety sees the provi- 
dence of God in the growth of the infant colony, in 
the prosperity of states, and the revolutions and fall 
of empires. But he works by ministries; and the 
mcfet terrible exhibitions of his wrath, the most fear- 
ful of his judgments are those in which he lets loose 




CONCLUSIONS. 381 

the demons, and permits a people to fall under their 
power. These demons work their own will, but are 
at the same time the executors of his vengeance — of 
his justice. The good, even in the greatest national 
calamities, are never injured, for nothing but sin 
ever injures; but the wicked are punished. They 
had chosen the devil for their master, and it is fitting 
that he whom they had falsely worshipped as God, 
who is no God, should be made the instrument of 
their punishment. The national sins of England 
were great; her kings had betrayed their trust — 
had led the people into error, and forgotten what 
they owed to the King of kings and Lord of lords. 
The Lord had a controversy with them, and he per- 
mitted the old Puritans to triumph over them ; and 
whether they did so by simple human strength, or 
by the willing assistance of evil spirits, inflaming 
them with a preternatural courage, and driving them 
on by a preternatural fury, the principle is one and 
the same. So also of France, in her terrible revolu- 
tion of 1789, and of Europe in 1848. 

I read with sorrow the puny attempts of the au- 
thor of Woodstock to explain away, as mere jugglery 
or trickery, the strange phenomena which disturbed 
the sequestrators of the Royal Lodge. He would, 
on the strength of an anonymous pamphlet, explain 
them as a trick played off upon the parliamentary 
commissioners by Dr. Rochecliff, Albert, Tompkins, 
Joceline, and Phebe. It may have been so ; but the 
machinery he supposes is clearly inadequate to ex- 



382 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

plain all the mysterious phenomena he acknowledges. 
The trick could hardly have failed, if trick there 
was, to be detected either by Colonel Everard or the 
Commissioners. But even, if his explanation of 
that particular case is to be accepted, or if a thou- 
sand instances are to be referred to trickery, it says 
nothing as to the general fact of demonic vexations 
and invasions. As Christians, we know that we 
are constantly beset by evil spirits, and the myste- 
rious occurrences at the Royal Lodge of Woodstock, 
even if real, are only a step beyond ordinary Satanic 
temptations, as possession is only a further* exten- 
sion of obsession. 

If much harm is done by superstition, perhaps 
even more is done by the denial of all demonic in- 
iluence and invasion, and the attempt to explain all 
the so-called Satanic phenomena on natural princi- 
ples. It generates a sceptical turn of mind, and the 
rationalism resorted to will in the end be turned 
against the supernatural facts of religion, and the 
same process which is adopted to explain away the 
Satanic prodigies, will be made use of to explain 
away the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. 
In fact it has been so done, and we have seen grave 
commentators laboring, as they believed, to explain 
these very miracles on natural principles ; thus reduc- 
ing Christianity from its high character of a super- 
mil ural religion to a system of mere naturalism, at 
best a simple human philosophy, perhaps inferior to 
many other systems. Jefferson, writing to Priestley, 






CONCLUSIONS. 383 

speaks, as he supposes, very well of our Lord, but 
disputes his merits as a philosopher, and says, 
in substance, " Jesus was a spiritualist, I am a ma- 
terialist." How many men in our days regard 
themselves as very commendable Christians because 
they recognize the beauty and worth of certain moral 
precepts of the Gospel, precepts which are only the 
universal dictates of reason, and recognized by the 
common sense of all nations* — heathen as well as 
Christian! Thomas Paine was more honest, for 
though he could say Jesus taught very pure morals, 
which have never been excelled, he refused to call 
himself a Christian. I have met many a professed 
minister of the Gospel who would find Tom Paine's 
creed, meagre as it was, too big for him : " I believe 
in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness 
beyond this life. I believe that religious duties con- 
sist in justice and mercy, and endeavoring to make 
our fellow-creatures happy." The Gospel, as it is 
preached by some " godly" ministers in New Eng- 
land, is too meagre to have satisfied a Rousseau, or 
even a Voltaire. 

In the case of the Spiritists of our own times, much 
harm is done by telling them the spirit-manifesta- 
tions are all humbuggery, imagination, fraud, or 
trickery. These people know that it is not so. They 
know that they are not knaves, that they practise no 
trickery, and have no wish to deceive or be deceived. 
They are not conscious of any dishonest intentions, 
and they have no reason to think that they are less 



384 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

intelligent or less sharp-sighted than they who abuse 
them as impostors, or ridicule them as dupes. The 
worst way in the world to convert a man from his 
errors is to begin by abusing him, and denying what 
he knows to be true. Except in the teachings of 
God, or what is the same thing, the teachings of 
men appointed, instructed, and supernaturally as- 
sisted by him to teach, we never find unmixed truth, 
for to err is human ; and on the other hand, we never 
find pure, unmixed falsehood. Unmixed falsehood 
is universal negation, and no negation is possible 
but by an affirmation. Error is the misapplication 
of the true. These Spiritists are deceived, are de- 
luded, I grant, for they are the sport of a lying and 
deceiving spirit; but they are not deceived or de- 
laded as to the phenomena to which they testify, 
nor, as a general thing, do they wish to deceive 
others. Among them there may be knaves and fools, 
there may be quacks and impostors, but I have no 
reason to suppose that the mass of them are not as 
intelligent and as honest as the common run of men, 
as the world goes. Their error is in their explica- 
tion of the phenomena, not in asserting the reality of 
the phenomena ; and to begin by telling them that no 
such phenomena have ever occurred, that the spirit- 
manifestations are all humbug, is, to say the least, a 
very unwise proceeding. If you are a minister of 
religion, by doing so you are only playing into the 
hands of the devil, for you outrage the natural 
sense of justice and truth which these people still 



CONCLUSIONS. 385 

retain, and dispose them in turn to look upon reli- 
gion itself, as held by the Christian Church, as a 
humbug. 

I have known many apparently sincere and pious 
persons driven to apostasy by the scepticism with 
regard to the phenomena they have themselves seen. 
The very worst way in the world to deliver our- 
selves or others from the power of Satan, is to deny 
his existence. K-esist the devil, and he will flee from 
you ; laugh at him, if you will, and he will hie him- 
self back to hell, for he cannot endure contempt ; 
but deny his existence, persuade yourselves that 
there exists no devil, and he in turn will' laugh at 
you, and take quiet possession of you. Oppose the 
Spiritists we certainly should, but not where they are 
strong and we are weak. The true way is to con- 
cede the facts, concede all that they really and 
honestly observe, concede even their mysterious and 
superhuman character, and then explain to them 
their principle and origin, and show them that' they 
proceed not from good angels, even when apparently 
they are pure and unobjectionable, but from the ene- 
mies of Christ, from Satan and his angels carrying 
on, with devilish malice, their never-ending war 
against Heaven. 

Such at least are the conclusions which I have 

been forced in my own mind to adopt, and such, it 

seems to me, all must adopt who study the question 

in the light of Christian theology. I am at least 

33 



386 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

honest in these conclusions, and, though I may err 
now, as I have so often erred before, yet I am not 
more likely to err than others. Err indeed I may, 
but, if 1 must err at all, I would rather err on the 
side of superstition, than on the side of scepticism 
and irreligion. 



387 



CHAPTER XXVL 



CONVERSION. 



My story, like my life, draws to its close. The 
change which my religious views have undergone 
has been more than once hinted. On religion, as 
on most other subjects, I no longer think or feel as 
I did in the day when I fancied I possessed more 
than human science, and wielded a more than hu- 
man power. 

I grew up without any decided religious doctrines, 
though inclining to what was called Liberal Christ- 
ianity, that is, a Christianity kept up with the times, 
and conformed to the ever-changing spirit of the 
age. I was not an avowed unbeliever ; I was not 
an open scoffer; I even thought it well to pay a 
decent external respect to religion, to attend church 
when convenient, and to patronize the Gospel, pro- 
viding it was not preached with too much earnest- 
ness and devotedness, and not promulgated as a law 
which must govern all my thoughts, words, and 
deeds, but was proposed simply as a speculation, as 
a theory, or as an opinion, which I was at liberty to 
accept, modify, or reject, as seemed to me good. 

Before my mesmeric experiments and acquaint- 



388 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

ance with Priscilla, I was a sort of Rationalist, ac- 
cepting Christianity in name, and explaining its 
miracles and mysteries on purely natural principles. 
Afterwards, after my philanthropic schemes had mis- 
carried, my worship of humanity as God had proved 
a failure, and my belief in progress had expired in 
the crucible of experience, I fell into a sort of de- 
spair, and would fain have persuaded myself that I 
believed in nothing. If I did not absolutely deny 
God, my belief in him became so obscured by the 
mists of my speculations and the corruptions of my 
heart, that I was in reality no better than an atheist. 
The devil was a bugbear invented by the priests, 
and men were mere motes in the sunbeam. I have 
already described the state into which I fell — a 
state from which I would risk my life to save my 
bitterest enemy. 

Prior to the absolute crushing of all my hopes, 
which followed my having finished all the work 
I had marked out for myself to do, and found it 
nought, I regarded myself as a Free-Thinker, be- 
cause 1 had either allowed myself to think, or had 
made myself acquainted with the thoughts of others, 
against religion. My freedom and independence of 
mind were in denying, not in believing. I was not 
free to think in favor of religion, nor sufficiently 
independent to believe Christianity, and labor in 
earnest to serve God and save my own soul. To 
have done so would have been sheer superstition, 
would have been sinking myself to the level of the 



CONVERSION. 389 

vulgar, and to have exposed myself to the gibes and 
sneers of my scientific associates. 

Nevertheless, my unbelief, my scepticism, and my 
radicalism, were a sort of violence done to my own 
better feelings and graver judgment. They never 
came natural to me, and I am sure I was never cut 
out for a philanthropist or a world-reformer. There 
was always something in the views and practices of 
my associates that disgusted me, and often was I 
obliged to hold my nose when they were discussed, as 
it is said Satan does when he encounters a confirmed 
sensualist. I had no natural relish for "the New- 
ness," and when at worst retained a secret reverence 
for the past, and dwelt with pleasure on the time- 
hallowed, over which for ages had flowed the stream 
of human affection, human joy, and human sorrow. 
I stood in awe before the shadow of the hoary Eld, 
and wished always to find myself bound by indisso- 
luble ties to what had gone before me, as well as to 
what might come after me. Half in spite, and half 
under the charm of Priscilla, I embraced philan- 
thropy, but not inwardly, for her sophistry never for 
a moment deceived me. Never was there a mo- 
ment when I did not see through the philanthropists, 
radicals, and revolutionists with whom I associated, 
or when with a breath I could not have swept away J 
their cobweb theories ; never for a moment was I 
deceived as to the actual character of the devilish 
movements I myself set on foot. 

It may be thought strange, such being the fact, 
33* 



390 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

that I could or would have played the part I did. 
It might be enough to say Satan had power over 
me ; but I associated with the prophets of " the 
Newness," and led on the movement, partly because 
I did not know what else to do, and partly because 
I could not endure absolute idleness. I saw indeed 
the destructive character of my movements, but I 
cherished a hope that by making things worse, I 
should prepare the way for making them better. 
You must demolish, I said, the old edifice, and clear 
away its rubbish, before you can erect a new, a more 
beautiful, or a more convenient structure on its site. 
I accepted, after a manner, the opinions and theories 
of the Neologists, not because they satisfied me, 
but because I knew not what else to accept ; and, 
though not true, they might conduct me to truth. 
The road to the temple of Purity runs through the 
Bower of Bliss, the path to heaven crosses the devil's 
territory, and error is the prodrome of truth. Such 
were the maxims I adopted, not indeed because I 
believed them, but because they were convenient, 
and because I saw not otherwise how to justify my- 
self, or solve the problem of experience. I adhered 
to my philanthropy, infidelity, and radicalism, not 
because I loved or believed them, but because I saw 
nothing true in the principles and reasonings I 
was accustomed to hear opposed to them. * The 
religious and conservative people I knew, and I 
supposed them the most enlightened and the least 
irrational of their class, seemed to believe and retain 



CONVERSION. 



391 



either too much or too little. On one side they 
seemed to accept and act on the principles which I 
and my party professed, and on the other to insist 
on conclusions which could be logically obtained 
only from a contradictory set of principles, and 
which they with one voice condemned as false, mis- 
chievous, and leading only to superstition, idolatry, 
and spiritual thraldom. Their denials struck me as 
too sweeping for their affirmations, and their affirm- 
ations as quite too broad for their denials. I found 
myself in the unpleasant predicament, either of di- 
vinizing humanity, or of embracing a religion which 
they held to be worse than the rankest infidelity. 

For a time, while I was in good health, while I 
possessed arid wielded a more than human power, 
and had not yet exhausted the world in which I did 
believe, or despaired of recasting it after my own 
image, I got along without much difficulty ; but 
when I no longer saw 7 any object in life, when there 
was from my own point of view no longer any work 
for me to do, and I was thrown back on my own 
failing godship, and left to devour my own heart, I 
became wretched, more wretched than I can express. 
The blow which prostrated me, and the disease 
which it developed, and brought me to handgrips 
w r ith Death, changed the current of my thoughts, 
but unhappily only to render them for the time still 
more painful. " You know, O Socrates," says Ce- 
phalus in Plato's Republic^ " that when a man thinks 
that he is drawing near to death, certain things, as 



392 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

to which he had previously been very tranquil, 
awaken in his bosom anxiety and alarm. What 
has been told him of hell and the punishment of 
the wicked, the stories at which he had formerly 
laughed or mocked, now fill his soul with trouble. 
He fears that they may prove true. Enfeebled by 
age, or brought nearer to the frightful abodes, he 
seems to perceive them with greater clearness and 
force, and is therefore disturbed by doubts and ap- 
prehensions. He reviews his past life, and seeks 
what evil he may have done. If he finds, on exami- 
nation, that his life has been iniquitous, he awakes 
often in the night, agitated and shuddering, as a 
child, with sudden terrors, trembles and lives in 
fearful expectation ; " or, as I may add with St. Paul, 
"a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery 
indignation." As I found myself on my dying bed, 
things began to wear to me a very different aspect 
from what they did when I was in the heyday of 
youth, in the full flow of my animal spirits, or filled 
with the vain and delusive hope of subjecting all 
nature to my will. The lessons which I had heard 
in my childhood, and which I had ridiculed or for- 
gotten, came back with startling power ; and in my 
lonely reflections I was forced to ask what, if that 
which they tell us of death and judgment, of heaven 
and hell, the rewards of the good and the punish- 
ment of the wicked, should turn out to be true ? 

My trouble, my anxiety, and my alarm increased 
in proportion as Mr. Merton forced upon me, by his 



CONVERSION. 393 

conversations, the full conviction that I had really- 
been dealing with devils, that Satan is really a per- 
sonal existence, and that I had made a covenant 
with him, and had acted under his influence. My 
rationalism had led me to question his personal ex- 
istence, and to attempt to explain the demonic phe- 
nomena without the supposition of his interposition. 
Denying Satan, I had denied Christ; and being now 
forced to recognize Satan, I was forced to confess 
Christ, and all the Christian mysteries. By the same 
process by which I had explained away the demonic 
phenomena, I had explained away the miracles and 
the supernatural character of Christianity. By that 
same process of reasoning by which Mr. Merton 
compelled me to admit the false miracles, the lying 
signs and wonders of Satan, I was forced to admit 
the true miracles, therefore the Divine commission, 
and therefore the Divinity of Christ, because Christ 
claimed to be the Son of God. 

Here is, I apprehend, the principal source of that 
difficulty which so many people find in admitting 
the reality of the demonic phenomena. They can- 
not admit Satan and his works, without admitting 
Christ and redemption, purchased with his own 
blood on the cross, — in a word, without admitting 
all the Christian mysteries and dogmas, — Chris- 
tianity itself, and that not as an opinion, not as a 
speculation, but as the law of God for conscience. 
Most men have, at least, a dim perception of this 
fact ; and as they do not like to admit Christianity 



394 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

in a Christian sense, they will not suffer themselves 
to believe that there is any thing Satanic in the dark 
phenomena of human history. For, whatever may 
be the professions we hear, whatever the apparent 
zeal displayed in the cause of a bastard Christianity, 
our age is an unbelieving age, and hates, I may say, 
with a perfect hatred, Christ and his Church. The 
age is blind to the perception of Christian truth, but 
sharp-sighted to whatever is requisite to prevent that 
truth from making its w T ay to the heart. It sees very 
clearly what it must concede, if it accepts Mr. Mer- 
ton's doctrine; and therefore, with all its energy and 
astuteness, it insists on explaining the demonic phe- 
nomena on natural principles, or on denying them 
outright. 

But detached from the world by experience of its 
hollowness, and by my mortal illness, I became less 
disposed to resist the grace of God, and in some 
measure prepared to listen with candor to Mr. Mer- 
ton's reasoning. I very soon became convinced that 
I had really fallen into the error of calling good evil, 
and evil good. I had really substituted Satan for 
God, and in doing so had committed the precise error 
the Christian clergy had always laid to my charge. 
I saw that they had been right in advocating what 
I called, with Priscilla, the system of repression, and I 
wrong in advocating the contrary system. I saw 
that, as a reasonable man, I must abandon the whole 
order of ideas which I had cherished in my Satanic 
pride and lust, and embrace that order of ideas 



CONVERSION. 395 

which I had hitherto rejected as false and mischiev- 
ous. There was no room for compromise. I must 
say decidedly either " Good Lord" or " Good Devil," 
and as I could no longer say the latter, I must say 
the former. 

Many people, knowing my order of thinking when 
I was well and in the world, may blame a change 
so complete and so universal ; but only because they 
are people of confused, incomplete, and disjointed 
thought, whose views are always dim, obscure, and 
incoherent, and who can never understand the ope- 
rations of a mind that reduces all its views to their 
fundamental principle, to a clear, well-defined, and 
self-coherent whole, so that any change at all must 
be change of principle, and involve an entire change 
of system. Philosophical and logical minds may 
err, but in their premises, not in their conclusions 
from them. No question with them is ever a ques- 
tion of detail, and none ever turns on a collateral 
issue, If they start from infidel premises, they will 
come to the conclusion that Satan is God, and ad- 
just their theory of the universe accordingly. If 
they assume, as their point of departure, that liberty 
is in the absence of all restraint, and that libertv in 
this sense is good, they must come to the conclusion 
so earnestly insisted upon by my instructress Priscilla, 
and of course reject that whole order of ideas which 
asserts the need of law, the utility of government, 
or the necessity of restraint. That, in doing so, they 
go against common sense, they are as well aware 



396 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

as are their opponents ; but that fact cannot move 
them, for the legitimate conclusion from it, if their 
premises are right, is that so-called common sense 
is wrong, and needs to be corrected. If the common 
opinions, doctrines, or judgments of mankind are 
against them, they are indemnified by finding a com- 
mon feeling, a secret but real feeling, of all men in 
their favor; for the very fact that restraint is neces- 
sary, proves that perverse nature demands, when 
left to itself, universal liberty or unbounded license. 
They have but to adopt the doctrine of the innate 
purity and sanctity of nature, to call this natural 
feeling a pure and holy instinct, and bid us follow 
nature, in order to make out their complete logical 
justification. They are simply consequent, to use a 
logical term ; and their opponents, who accept their 
premises but deny their conclusions, are inconse- 
quent. 

The common run of men, who oppose this class 
of thinkers and speculators, not by a complete and 
coherent system constructed on the principle of law 
and authority, and who are constantly saying Good 
Lord and Good Devil, Good Devil and Good Lord, 
trying forever to conciliate both at the same time, 
and endeavoring with all their might to serve both 
God and Mammon, which He who "spake as never 
man spake" declares to be impossible, whenever 
they are hard pushed, cry out against them as 
logic-choppers, hair-splitters, narrow-minded system- 
mongers, and represent them as wanting in broad 



CONVERSION. 397 

and comprehensive views, in liberal and generous 
feelings, as mere theorists, destitute of plain, practi- 
cal common sense. What is really a merit in them, 
is denounced as folly or crime, and the whole pack, 

" Tray, Blanche, Sweetheart, little dogs and all," 

are let loose against them. This is wrong. Either 
our feeling, our sensitive and affective nature, is to 
be made subordinate and subservient to our reason, 
or our reason is to be subordinated and made sub- 
servient to feeling. To attempt to maintain them 
as two equal, coordinate, and mutually independent 
powers, after the manner of the Gallicans in rela- 
tion to Church and State, is only to prepare the way 
for internal anarchy and disorder. The fool makes 
reason subservient to his feelings, emotions, affec- 
tions, or passions, and as to his proper manhood, 
lives as a slave; the wise man subjects these to his 
reason, that is, to understanding and will, and lives, 
moves, and acts as a freeman. 

Now I had one of those minds which reduce their 
views to system, or to their fundamental principle. 
My starting-point, my fundamental principle was 
false, and therefore my whole system or theory of 
the universe was false. This once discovered, I 
necessarily embraced the opposing principle, and as 
necessarily embraced it in all its legitimate conse- 
quences. I never was so constituted as to be able 
to strike a balance between truth and falsehood, or 
to accept a principle and deny its consequences. In 
' 34 



398 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

matters of practice, I can understand, where no prin- 
ciple is sacrificed, what are called compromises, and 
I have never needed to be told that true prudence 
usually forbids us to push matters to extremes. 
When we act, we must consider the practicable, and 
the expedient, as far as principle leaves us any discre- 
tionary power; but in asserting principles, in the 
question between truth and falsehood, right and 
wrong, I have always felt it necessary to be on one 
side or the other. It ought not therefore to be con- 
sidered strange that, forced by Mr. Merton and my 
own serious reflections to deny that Satan is God, I 
should swing round to the other extreme, and assert 
that God is God ; or that, starting from this bold 
proposition as a first principle, I should adjust, or 
endeavor to adjust my whole order of thought to it. 
I am aware that my having done so will, with the 
mass of my countrymen, bring reproach upon my 
memory, and induce some who may cherish a re- 
gard for me to attempt to apologize for my want of 
inconsistency and incoherency ; but, happily, the 
puaises or the censures of men cannot affect me 
any longer, and I shall soon be where they cannot 
reach me. 

Brought back to an intellectual conviction of the 
truth of Christianity, my trouble increased ; for if 
Christianity be true, it is not simply the revelation 
of a truth to be believed, but also of a truth to be 
practised — of a law to be obeyed. I had not obeyed 
that law; I had deliberately, systematically violated 



CONVERSION. 



399 



all its precepts for years, and had taught others to 
do the same. I had fallen under its condemnation, 
and had incurred its severest penalties. The pros- 
pect that now opened before me was not pleasing. 
There was a vision of blackness and despair. The 
judgment I derided, the heaven I had scorned, the 
hell I had braved or treated as a fiction, were all 
realities. I must soon appear before my Judge, 
loaded with crimes and sins innumerable, and of 
the blackest dye. It was impossible to imagine one 
more wicked or guilty than myself. I could plead 
nothing in excuse or extenuation of my guilt. I 
had proved myself the enemy of my race, a foul- 
mouthed and black-hearted rebel, against God, my 
sovereign, who had done nothing to me but load me 
with benefits. It was no pleasant thought. I had 
consorted with devils, I had chosen them for my 
associates, and what more fitting than that I should 
be left to my own choice, to reap the fruits of my 
own doings, and be doomed to dwell eternally with 
them in hell? It was what I deserved, what im- 
maculate Justice might well inflict. The thought 
was not to be endured. 

I had made a covenant with death. I had en- 
tered into an agreement with hell, and had by a 
solemn pact given myself to the devil, and who had 
ever heard that such a one had ever received grace 
to repent? Had I not blasphemed the Holy Ghost, 
committed the unpardonable sin? My accomplice 
had been rescued, it was true, but she had been less 



400 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

guilty than I. She had been deceived, seduced by 
the wiles of the serpent, and struggled to break the 
meshes he had cast around her as soon as she fully 
understood their real character. Guilty she certainly 
had been, but there was some limit to her guilt. I 
can hardly say that I was deceived. From the first 
I suspected the truth, and when I remained blind, I 
remained so wilfully. I had acted deliberately; — 
not from the strength of feeling, or the heat of pas- 
sion, but coolly, from calculation, with full assent. 
There was a great difference between us. What 
hope, then, remained for me ? 

The world will laugh at me for all this, and wag 
their heads at the mighty magician starting back 
with fear of death and dread of hell. The world 
has no faith. If it can make sure of this life, it 
thinks we may jump, as Macbeth proposed, that 
which is to come. But the world is nothing to me 
now, and I am not moved by its mockeries. I am 
not ashamed to own my fears. I fear not dying. I 
fear what may come after death. I fear the last 
judgment. I fear hell. I fear being condemned to 
dwell forever with the damned. The salvation of 
my soul to me now is the great, the all-absorbing 
question — the question of questions. 

Mr. Merton continued to visit me, and to un- 
fold to me the scheme of Christian Redemption, 
and assured me that, if I willed it, there was salva- 
tion even for me, for Christ had died for all, had 
made ample satisfaction on the cross for the sins 



CONVERSION. 401 

of the whole world, and that great as my sins were, 
they were surpassed by the Divine Mercy. He in- 
structed me in what I had to believe, and in what 
I had to do. The baptismal waters were poured over 
me, and I w r as confirmed by the Holy Chrism, and I 
hope that my pact with Satan is broken, and my 
soul delivered. But I know not whether it be so 
or not ; I know not whether I deserve love or hatred. 
I still fear and tremble, but will not despair. I am 
trying, as far as in my power, to undo the wrong I 
have done, and have dictated with that view these 
my confessions, which will see the light as soon as 
may be after I am no more. 

All are kind to me. My friends, those who have 
known me in my pride and wickedness, strange to 
say, do not desert me ; and those I love best are 
constantly near me, and do all they can to relieve 
my pain, and to strengthen my good resolutions. 
Priscilla is not unfrequently my nurse, and James is 
most kind and affectionate to me. If human aid or 
sympathy could avail me, I should have nothing to 
fear. But here I lie waiting my departure. How it 
will fare with me hereafter, God only knows. His 
will be done. 

My story is told. My confessions, as far as I can 
make them to the public, are made. Let no man 
see in me an example to be followed, or regard me 
otherwise than as a miserable wretch who, in man- 
hood and health, abused all God's gifts, and has 
nothing to relieve his character from utter detesta- 



(3 . fan 

402 THE SPIRIT-RAPPER. 

tation but a late death-bed repentance. My life 
can serve as a beacon ; let it so serve. Yet I beg 
all whom I have wronged to forgive me, for I would, 
as far as possible, die in peace with all the world. 
I have nothing to forgive, for I have received no 
wrongs. I have done wrong to the world, but I 
have suffered no wrong from it. I cannot ask that 
my memory should be cherished, for it deserves only 
to be execrated. Yet is it pleasant to feel that there 
are some who, bad as I have been, still love me, and 
will drop a tear of sincere grief over my lifeless re- 
mains. There are, too, some who, from the abun- 
dance of their charity, will, as they pass by my final 
resting-place, breathe the prayer, so consoling to 
the living at least, — " May his soul rest in peace." 
After all, good is greater than evil, and love stronger 
than hell. 



THE END. 









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PreservationTechnologies 

■V. A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

\£- Q> 11 1 Thomson Park Drive 




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Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
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